Amending The Constitution: Congress' Role And Power

Amending the United States Constitution is a challenging and time-consuming process. The framers of the Constitution, which was drafted in 1787, intended for it to endure for ages to come, making amendments difficult to achieve. To amend the Constitution, two-thirds of both houses of Congress must pass a proposed amendment, and then it must be ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states. This process ensures that any changes to the Constitution have a significant impact on all Americans or secure the rights of citizens. As a result, the Constitution has only been amended 27 times, with the most recent amendment occurring in 1933.

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Amending the US Constitution is a difficult and time-consuming process

Amending the US Constitution is a challenging and lengthy process by design. Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in the early 1800s that the Constitution was written "to endure for ages to come." To ensure its longevity, the framers intentionally made it difficult to amend. As a result, the Constitution has been amended only 27 times since it was drafted in 1787, including the first ten amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, which were adopted four years later.

The amendment process is outlined in Article V of the Constitution. It requires a proposed amendment to be passed by a two-thirds majority in both houses of Congress. Following this, the amendment must be ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states or by ratifying conventions in three-fourths of the states. This process ensures that any amendment has a significant impact on the country and secures the rights of citizens.

The high bar for amending the Constitution was evident in the failed attempts by supporters of congressional term limits and a balanced budget amendment to make changes. The ERA Amendment also failed to pass the necessary majority of state legislatures in the 1980s. While there is a proposal for a Constitutional Convention to initiate the amendment process, this has never occurred.

The process of amending the Constitution is not only challenging but also time-consuming. Most amendments proposed since 1917 have included a deadline for ratification. However, there is no explicit timeframe mentioned in Article V for the ratification of proposed amendments. The lengthy process underscores the framers' intention to make amending the Constitution a difficult undertaking, ensuring its endurance and stability over time.

Two-thirds of both Houses must deem an amendment necessary

Amending the United States Constitution is a challenging and time-consuming process. The Constitution was written "to endure for ages to come", as Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in the early 1800s. To ensure its longevity, the framers made it difficult to amend. Since it was drafted in 1787, the Constitution has been amended only 27 times, including the first 10 amendments, which were adopted four years later as the Bill of Rights.

For an amendment to be proposed, two-thirds of both Houses of Congress must deem it necessary. This is a significant hurdle, as it requires a substantial majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. This step ensures that any amendment has broad support and consensus among lawmakers. It is worth noting that the United States Supreme Court has ruled that the requisite two-thirds vote refers to two-thirds of the members present, assuming a quorum exists, rather than two-thirds of the entire membership of both Houses.

The process of proposing an amendment through Congress is just the first step. After an amendment is proposed by Congress, it must then be ratified. There are two methods of ratification outlined in Article V of the Constitution. The first method is for the amendment to be ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states. The second method is for the amendment to be ratified by ratifying conventions in three-fourths of the states. This second method has only been used once in American history, in the ratification of the Twenty-First Amendment in 1933.

The process of amending the Constitution is deliberately challenging, and the requirement for two-thirds of both Houses to support an amendment is a crucial part of this. This requirement ensures that amendments have broad support and are not passed lightly. It also helps to protect the stability and longevity of the Constitution, ensuring that it can indeed "endure for ages to come".

The amendment must be ratified by three-quarters of state legislatures

Amending the US Constitution is a challenging and time-consuming process. The framers of the Constitution made it this way to ensure that it would "endure for ages to come". The Constitution has been amended only 27 times since it was drafted in 1787, including the first 10 amendments, which were adopted as the Bill of Rights four years later.

For an amendment to be added to the Constitution, it must be ratified by the legislatures of three-quarters of the states. This means that out of the 50 US states, 38 must agree to the proposed amendment for it to become part of the Constitution. This process is outlined in Article V of the Constitution, which sets forth the procedures for amending the document.

The ratification process can be initiated in two ways. The first is through a proposal by Congress, where two-thirds of both houses must pass the proposed amendment. The second way is for two-thirds of the state legislatures (34 out of 50 states) to request that Congress call a Constitutional Convention to propose amendments. However, this option has never been utilised, and a new Constitutional Convention has never been called.

Once the proposed amendment passes either of these thresholds, it moves on to the ratification stage. At this stage, state legislatures or ratifying conventions in three-quarters of the states must approve the amendment for it to be adopted. The vote of each state carries equal weight, regardless of its population or length of time in the Union. The ratification process can be challenging, as seen with the ERA Amendment in the 1980s, which failed to gain the necessary support from a majority of state legislatures.

While Article V outlines the procedures for amending the Constitution, it does not specify whether those procedures can be used to amend Article V itself. There is ongoing debate among legal scholars regarding the exclusivity of Article V in the amendment process.

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Congress decides whether state legislatures or ratifying conventions are used

Article V of the United States Constitution sets forth the procedures for amending the Constitution. It establishes two methods for proposing amendments: the congressional proposal method and the convention method.

The congressional proposal method requires a two-thirds vote in each House of Congress to propose an amendment. This method has been used for all existing amendments so far. Once an amendment is proposed by Congress, it must be ratified by the states. Congress decides whether the states will ratify the amendment through their state legislatures or through ratifying conventions. In either case, three-fourths of the states must approve the amendment for it to become part of the Constitution.

The convention method allows two-thirds of the state legislatures to apply for Congress to call a convention for proposing amendments. This method bypasses the federal government and has never been used.

While Congress has the sole discretion to choose the mode of ratification, in practice, it has almost always specified ratification by state legislatures. The only exception is the Twenty-First Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment establishing Prohibition and was ratified by state ratifying conventions.

Article V has never been amended

Article V of the United States Constitution lays out the procedures for amending the Constitution. It was written "to endure for ages to come", as stated by Chief Justice John Marshall in the early 1800s. Amending the Constitution is a difficult and time-consuming process, and Article V has never been amended.

Article V sets forth two methods for proposing amendments: the first method, which has been used for all 33 amendments submitted to the states for ratification, is for Congress to propose an amendment, which requires a two-thirds majority vote in both houses of Congress. The second method, which has never been used, is for two-thirds of the state legislatures to apply for Congress to call a Constitutional Convention to propose amendments. Once an amendment is proposed, it must be ratified by three-fourths of the states, either by the state legislatures or by state ratifying conventions, as decided by Congress.

Article V also makes certain subjects unamendable. It states that no amendment shall deprive a state, without its consent, of its equal suffrage in the Senate. This provision was included to prevent amendments that would affect the Constitution's limitations on Congress's power to restrict the slave trade or levy certain taxes on land or slaves before 1808. While these limitations on amendments have expired, the provision prohibiting states from being deprived of equal suffrage in the Senate remains in effect.

The process of amending the Constitution is designed to be difficult to ensure that any changes have a major impact and affect all Americans. This difficulty has resulted in only 27 successful amendments since the Constitution was drafted in 1787, with no amendments since 1971 except for the unusual case of the Twenty-Seventh Amendment, which was proposed in 1789 and ratified over two hundred years later in 1992.

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