what does it take to make an amendment to the constitution

[LegisBrief] Amending the U.S. Constitution

By Brenda Erickson | Vol . 25, No. xxx / August 2017

Current efforts by some state legislatures and other groups to amend the U.Southward. Constitution have brought along questions well-nigh the procedure for doing so. The Founding Fathers, in crafting the Constitution, believed it should non be easy to amend the nation's founding document and principles.

Authorization to Better the U.South. Constitution

Article Five of the U.s. Constitution outlines basic procedures for constitutional amendment.

1. Congress may submit a proposed constitutional amendment to the states, if the proposed subpoena language is approved past a 2-thirds vote of both houses.
2. Congress must call a convention for proposing amendments upon application of the legislatures of two-thirds of u.s.a. (i.e., 34 of 50 states).
3. Amendments proposed by Congress or convention become valid only when ratified by the legislatures of, or conventions in, 3-fourths of united states (i.e., 38 of 50 states).

Amendments Proposed by Congress

To date, Congress has submitted 33 amendment proposals to the states, 27 of which were ratified. The 27^thursday Amendment, which prevents members of Congress from granting themselves pay raises during a current session, was ratified in 1992—202 years afterwards it was first submitted to the states.

The following steps must exist completed for an amendment proposed past Congress to be added to the Us Constitution.\

Step 1. Passage by Congress. Proposed amendment linguistic communication must be approved past a ii-thirds vote of both houses.

Step 2. Notification of the states. The national archivist sends notification and materials to the governor of each state.

Stride three. Ratification by three-fourths of united states. Ratification of the amendment linguistic communication adopted past Congress is an up-or-down vote in each legislative bedchamber. A state legislature cannot change the linguistic communication. If it does, its ratification is invalid. A governor's signature on the ratification neb or resolution is not necessary.

Step iv. Tracking country deportment. Proposed amendments must be ratified by three-fourths of the states in order to take effect. Congress may ready a fourth dimension limit for state activeness. The official count is kept past Part of the Federal Register at the National Archives. Legislatures must return specific materials to prove proof of ratification.

Step 5. Announcement. When the requisite number of states ratify a proposed amendment, the archivist of the United States proclaims information technology as a new amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Actual certification is published immediately in the Federal Register and somewhen in the United states Statutes-at-Large.

Land legislatures often call upon Congress to advise constitutional amendments. While these calls may bring some political pressure level to acquit, Congress is under no ramble obligation to respond. The U.S. Constitution does not contain a provision requiring Congress to submit a proposed amendment upon request past some requisite number of states.

Subpoena by Constitutional Convention

In addition to ramble amendments proposed by Congress, states have the pick of petitioning Congress to telephone call a ramble convention. Legislatures in two-thirds of states must agree, however. While the convention procedure has yet to be triggered, efforts to do so are not new. In fact, they may exist "as old as the commonwealth." Unofficial sources study convention applications being filed every bit early as 1789.

Interest in a U.S. constitutional convention has peaked and waned several times over the decades. In the early 1900s, direct election of senators was a hot topic. In the 1940s and 1950s, federal taxing power was the focus of many applications. Two problems came close to triggering conventions during the 1960s to 1990s—apportionment and a counterbalanced federal budget.

The electric current wave of interest began effectually 2010. Its focus is non a single event nor is it being driven by 1 organization. Various groups are pushing their viewpoints—be they bourgeois, liberal, populist or progressive—and are urging activity. On the one paw, legislation calls for a convention on a broad array of topics, such as limiting authorisation of the federal government, counterbalanced federal budget, campaign finance reform, congressional term limits or federal debt. On the other hand, some legislation proposes to rescind previous calls for a convention.

The volume of legislation introduced in land legislatures illustrates recent interest.

• 2011—78 bills or resolutions
• 2012—40 bills or resolutions
• 2013—62 bills or resolutions
• 2014—66 bills or resolutions
• 2015—65 bills or resolutions
• 2016—89 bills or resolutions
• 2017 (through July 12, 2017)—120 bills or resolutions

It is hard to predict whether current efforts will lead to a ramble convention. And since an Commodity Five convention has never been held, questions are being raised about when and how this may happen:

• Does someone officially runway convention applications?
• Has an official list of the applications been created?
• What constitutes an official application past a state legislature?
• What is the proper procedure for enacting and submitting state legislative applications?
• Must the language of the states' applications be identical?
• Must the applications be made be made within a specific or relatively close timeframe?
• May a legislature rescind its own application?
• May a subsequent legislature rescind an application submitted by a previous legislature?
• May the scope of the convention exist limited?
• May the land legislatures constitute the telescopic limit within their calls? Or is that a congressional office?

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Source: https://www.ncsl.org/research/about-state-legislatures/amending-the-u-s-constitution.aspx

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