Hoosier State Today

The Indiana Convention of States has seen its supporter base grow over the past several years and livestreaming is one tool that is spurring grassroots growth.

Dale Parrish, the Indiana COS state director, told Hoosier State Today that the growth in the state has outperformed the Convention of States' national rate. 

"We did an analysis in Dec. 20 comparing supporter growth in Indiana versus our national experience from 2017–2020. Indiana growth has outperformed national," Parrish said. "Indiana supporter growth has been a whopping 249% while national was a very impressive 114%. Indiana now (has) just over 55,000 and national now (is) just over 5 million."

Parrish said he has used livestreaming for a little more than two years. 

"I have used live streaming as another one of our methods of reaching out to the grassroots," Parrish said. "My target audience is primarily Hoosiers not a part of Convention of States but, of course, open to anyone watching the broadcast."

The livestream is called COS Indiana Live and it is a Facebook Live broadcast, which uses a program called BeLive.TV. 

"I also simultaneously live stream to our YouTube channel COS Indiana," he said. "I broadcast every Monday evening at 7 p.m. EST through our state Facebook page, Convention of State Indiana." 

A link to a recent broadcast on YouTube can be viewed here and the Facebook page can be viewed here.

"My objective on the livestream is to introduce COS Indiana leadership individuals, provide resources and general information about COS and specifically COS Indiana, announce upcoming COS events in Indiana, educate about our constitution and Convention of States and, finally, invite viewers to join Convention of States and tell them how to go about becoming a supporter," Parrish said.

COS is a national effort to call for a convention of the states under Article V of the U.S. Constitution. Thirty-four states are needed to call for a convention for the purpose of proposing amendments to the Constitution. Currently 15 states have passed the resolution, including Indiana.  

While Indiana has seen its membership surge, Parrish is not sure how many new supporters have been gained from his livestream.

"All I know is that each year my viewership has grown and I’m consistently finding new ways to make the livestream more interesting," he said. "It is much harder work than I thought it would be."