State Senate President Andy Biggs has been called a RINO and a clown, and even compared to Democratic U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, all for opposing an Article V Convention.

What’s a conservative Republican lawmaker to do?

Write a book.

In “The Con of the Con Con” – the senator’s nickname for what was once called a Constitutional Convention, now better known as an Article V Convention – he details his arguments against  states calling for a convention to amend the U.S. Constitution. Proponents of the convention have suggested it could be used to rein in Congress and the federal government. They have called for amendments to establish term limits, require a balanced federal budget, or limit increases to federal debt, among other ideas.

Biggs, R-Gilbert, spends 155 pages arguing against those efforts in a lengthy explanation of why he’s used his power as the Senate president to stop legislation calling for an Article V Convention from passing at the Arizona Capitol.

Biggs led an effort to defeat an Article V resolution in 2012 by arguing that it could lead to a runaway convention where nearly any issue could be proposed, not simply a conservative’s dream of a tight purse for the federal government.

And in 2014, Biggs was criticized by former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin for blocking another Article V resolution, one that had been approved in the House before Biggs put the legislation in a drawer for the remainder of the session.

Palin took to Facebook in April 2014 to blast Biggs as “the only man standing in the way” of the resolution’s passage.

“Unless he budges, the session will run out, and the bill will actually die this year after thousands of hours of grassroots work and effort,” Palin wrote on Facebook. “I encourage everyone in Arizona to call this state senator and voice your objections to these Harry Reid-like tactics… Tell him to allow this bill to come for a vote, and from now on, please only elect local leaders who support this effort.”

Biggs blocked yet another Article V resolution during the 2015 legislative session, one that was co-sponsored by 21 of his Republican colleagues.

The senator wrote that the book is a response to criticisms his position on an Article V Convention had drawn in the conservative community. He acknowledges a feeling that both pro- and anti-convention types have.

“There are many patriotic people who are so disgusted and concerned with the path America is on that they are earnestly seeking a remedy. Their sense of urgency is so acute that they are willing to try almost anything, even opening up the Constitution for amendment, even if it is hazardous,” he wrote.

It’s the possible hazards of an Article V Convention that alarm Biggs, and it’s those hazards that he claims supporters of the convention are ignoring in their zeal to find that remedy.

And even assuming that a convention went according to conservatives’ plans, lawmakers in Congress would still find loopholes to exploit and America would be right back where it is today, Biggs argues in the book.

Rep. Kelly Townsend, R-Mesa, is one of the Legislature’s biggest advocates of an Article V convention and the sponsor of the bill Biggs stopped during the 2015 Legislative session that would have started Arizona down the path of helping to amend the U.S. Constitution.

She strongly disagrees with Biggs’ assertion that Article V could lead to a “runaway convention” with liberals taking over the process to approve an amendment that conservatives would oppose. Biggs’ fear of a runaway convention is unfounded, she said, noting that it would take three-fourths of the states to ratify any amendment to the Constitution, and they aren’t likely to support any crazy ideas.

She said she respects Biggs’ opinion, but thinks that if the country is going to turn around, states are going to have to do something.

“We ought to operate with boldness and faith in our countrymen rather than in fear. Doing nothing changes nothing,” she said.

Biggs argues that he’s not advocating for nothing, but that proponents of an Article V Convention treat it as an all-or-nothing proposal.

“The big con here is that Convention advocates tell people that we have to do something, but they fail to disclose that their remedy only treats a few of the symptoms, without curing our American sickness. We are the problem,” Biggs wrote.

Electing the right leaders to office is the key to solving those symptoms, Biggs later argued.

He wrote that, if the federal government “in all its branches were to operate within the constraints of the enumerated powers in the Constitution, as it currently exists, America would quickly return to the land of the free.”

Townsend said that with Biggs at the helm of the Senate, she realizes legislation authorizing a convention isn’t likely to pass the chamber. But that’s not going to stop her from keeping up the fight.

“At the end of the day, I’m a patient person,” she said.

“The Con of the Con Con” is the second book Biggs has self-published through his own publishing company, Free Man Press, which he started in 2011.

Hank Stephenson contributed to this report.