How the Constitution is Amended

First off, welcome to Twenty-Eighth Amendment, the blog that will be following and discussing submitted new amendments to the United States Constitution. I will also discuss any news regarding previously ratified or proposed Constitutional amendments.

To begin this blog, I will describe the process by which the Constitution is amended. This process is outlined in Article V of the document, which reads:

The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.

So to explain what this means: Each submitted amendment must go through a two-step process before becoming a bona-fide part of the United States Constitution: proposal and ratification. Each step in this two-step process has two ways that it can be achieved.

STEP ONE: Proposal

1) 2/3 of each House of Congress (the House of Representatives and the Senate) passes the proposed Amendment.

OR

2) 2/3 of the State Legislatures call for a Constitutional Convention to propose amendments. (This has never happened before; therefore there is no precedent on how such a convention would operate.)

STEP TWO: Ratification

1) 3/4 of the state legislatures approve of the amendment.

OR

2) 3/4 of state conventions approve of the amendment (the State legislature would determine how such a convention would be elected and assembled. Only the 21st Amendment has been ratified in this manner. Unless otherwise specified, all proposed amendments are sent to the state legislatures.)

The United States Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times, the last being on May 7, 1992.