Hundreds of proposed amendments to the United States Constitution are introduced during each session of the United States Congress. From 1789 through January 3, 2019, approximately 11,770 measures have been proposed to amend the United States Constitution.[1] Collectively, members of the House and Senate typically propose around 200 amendments during each two-year term of Congress.[2] Most, however, never get out of the Congressional committees in which they were proposed. Only a fraction of those actually receive enough support to win Congressional approval to go through the constitutional ratification process. Some proposed amendments are introduced over and over again in different sessions of Congress. It is also common for a number of identical resolutions to be offered on issues that have widespread public and congressional support.
Since 1789, Congress has sent 33 constitutional amendments to the states for ratification. Of these, 27 have been ratified. The framers of the Constitution, recognizing the difference between regular legislation and constitutional matters, intended that it be difficult to change the Constitution; but not so difficult as to render it an inflexible instrument of government, as the amendment mechanism in the Articles of Confederation, which required a unanimous vote of thirteen states for ratification, had proven to be. Therefore, a less stringent process for amending the Constitution was established in Article V.
Amending the United States Constitution is a two-step process. Proposals to amend it must be properly adopted and ratified before becoming operative. A proposed amendment may be adopted and sent to the states for ratification by either:
A national convention, called by Congress for this purpose, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds (presently 34) of the states.[3][4]
The latter procedure has never been used. To become part of the Constitution, an adopted amendment must be ratified by either:
The legislatures of three-fourths (presently 38) of the states, within the stipulated time period, if any;
or
State ratifying conventions in three-fourths (presently 38) of the states, within the stipulated time period, if any.[4]
The decision of which ratification method will be used for any given amendment is Congress' alone to make, as is the decision to set a ratification deadline.[3] Only for the 21st amendment was the latter procedure invoked and followed. Upon being properly ratified, an amendment becomes an operative addition to the Constitution.[4]
Constitutional amendment proposals considered in but not approved by Congress during the 19th century included:
The Dueling Ban Amendment, proposed in 1838 after Representative William Graves killed another Representative, Jonathan Cilley, in a duel, would have prohibited any person involved in a duel from holding federal office.[5]
Shortly before his death during the congressional debates leading to the Compromise of 1850, John C. Calhoun proposed constitutional amendments requiring an equal number of slave states and free states and creating two co-Presidents from the North and the South which would have to concur on all legislation.[6] A similar amendment to eliminate the presidency so as to have two elected officials in its place, was proposed by Virginia Representative Albert Jenkins in 1860 shortly before sectional tensions escalated into the American Civil War. Jenkins saw the amendment as a way for both the Northern and the Southern states to be represented equally in the government at a given time.[7]
The Christian Amendment, first proposed in February 1863, would have added acknowledgment of the Christian God in the Preamble to the Constitution.[8] Similar amendments were proposed in 1874, 1896, and 1910 with none passing. The last attempt in 1954 did not come to a vote.
The Blaine Amendment, proposed in 1875, would have banned public funds from going to religious purposes, in order to prevent Catholics from taking advantage of such funds.[9] Though it failed to pass, many states adopted such provisions.[10]
An amendment allowing property-owning unmarried women to vote was proposed by Representative William Mason. The underlying logic behind this amendment was that these single women did not have husbands to represent their interests via the vote. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, a suffragist at the time, stated in her testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Woman Suffrage: "Though my coadjutors all believe in universal suffrage, yet I think we should be willing to let you start with spinsters and widows who are householder. Having homes of their own it is fair to suppose that they are industrious, common-sense women, ... women who love their country (having no husbands to love) better than themselves."[7][11] The Nineteenth Amendment would later establish women's suffrage irrespective of marital status or property in 1920.
Constitutional amendment proposals considered in but not approved by Congress during the 20th century included the following:
An amendment abolishing the Senate was proposed by Representative Victor Berger in 1911, due to his belief that it was corrupt as well as useless to the country as a whole. The amendment would have also shielded the unicameral House of Representatives' legislation from presidential veto and judicial review.[13] At the time, Senators were still elected by state legislatures. The year after Berger proposed his amendment, Congress passed an amendment mandating popular election of Senators which was duly ratified by the several states.
The Ludlow Amendment was proposed by Representative Louis Ludlow in 1937. This amendment would have heavily reduced America's ability to be involved in war, requiring a national referendum to confirm any declaration of war. Public support for the amendment was very robust through the 1930s, a period when isolationism was the prevailing mood in the United States.[17][18][19]
A maximum wage amendment that no person should accumulate more than $1 million was proposed by Representative Wesley Lloyd in 1933. In the wake of the Wall Street Crash and the beginnings of the Great Depression many Americans believed that personal wealth should be limited to avoid such an issue from happening again.[20]
The Bricker Amendment, proposed in 1951 by Ohio Senator John W. Bricker, would have limited the federal government's treaty-making power by prohibiting treaties from violating the U.S. Constitution and limiting executive agreements.[21] Opposed by President Dwight Eisenhower,[22] it failed twice to reach the threshold of two-thirds of voting members necessary for passage, the first time by eight votes and the second time by a single vote.[23]
A School Prayer Amendment to establish that "the people retain the right to pray and to recognize their religious beliefs, heritage, and traditions on public property, including schools" was proposed by Robert Byrd of West Virginia in 1962, 1973, 1979, 1982, 1993, 1995, 1997, and 2006.[30] Representative Ernest Istook, a Republican from Oklahoma's 5th congressional district, proposed the amendment in the House on May 8, 1997.[31] In March 1998, the House Judiciary Committee passed the bill by a 16–11 vote.[32] On June 4, 1998, the full House voted on the amendment, 224–203 in favor. The vote was 61 short of the required two-thirds majority.[33]
A Flag Desecration Amendment was first proposed in 1995 to give Congress the power to make acts such as flag burning illegal, seeking to supersede the 1990 Supreme Court case Texas v. Johnson, which ruled that such laws were unconstitutional.[34] During each term of Congress from 1995 to 2005, the proposed amendment was passed by the House of Representatives, but never by the Senate, coming closest during voting on June 27, 2006, with 66 in support and 34 opposed (one vote short).[35]
The Bayh–Celler amendment was the closest the United States has come to passing an Electoral College abolition amendment. The amendment would have replaced the current Electoral College with a simpler two-round system modeled after French presidential elections. It was proposed during the 91st Congress (1969–1971).[36] The House Judiciary Committee voted 28–6 to approve the proposal[37] and was eventually passed by the full House with bipartisan support on September 18, 1969, by a vote of 339 to 70.[38] The Senate commenced openly debating the proposal[39] and the proposal was quickly filibustered.[40] On September 17, 1970, a motion for cloture, which would have ended the filibuster, received 54 votes to 36 for cloture,[40] failing to receive the then required a two-thirds majority of senators voting. Other proposals were made in 2005, 2009, and 2016, none of which were voted on by committee.
The Human Life Amendment, first proposed in 1973, would overturn the Roe v. Wade court ruling and prohibit abortion. A total of 330 proposals using varying texts have been proposed with almost all dying in committee. The only version that reached a formal floor vote, the Hatch–Eagleton Amendment,[41][42] was rejected by 18 votes in the Senate on June 28, 1983.[43] The Roe v. Wade ruling was later overturned by the Supreme Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022), leaving individual states to regulate abortion.
A balanced budget amendment, in which Congress and the President are forced to balance the budget every year, has been introduced many times,[44] dating back to the 1930s.[45] No measure passed either body of Congress until 1982, when the Senate took 11 days to consider it and gained the necessary two-thirds majority.[45] The first and only time the House gave two-thirds approval to a balanced budget amendment was in 1995, when Members of the House of Representatives elected in the Republican Revolution voted for the Contract with America. That was also the last time the House held a floor or committee vote.[45]
The Federal Marriage Amendment has been introduced in the United States Congress four times: in 2003, 2004, 2005/2006, and 2008 by multiple members of Congress.[50] It would define marriage and prohibit same-sex marriage, even at the state level. The last Congressional vote on the proposed amendment occurred in the House of Representatives on July 18, 2006, when the motion failed 236–187, falling short of the 290 votes required for passage in that body. The Senate has voted only on cloture motions with regard to the proposed amendment, the last of which was on June 7, 2006, when the motion failed 49 to 48, falling short of the 60 votes required to allow the Senate to proceed to consideration of the proposal and the 67 votes required to send the proposed amendment to the states for ratification.
Representative John Culberson introduced an amendment altering Article V to limit any national convention convoked by the states to amend the Constitution to a single amendment and requiring Congress to authorize such as a convention.[61] This amendment, sometimes called the "Madison Amendment", would prevent a "runaway convention" from drastically altering or replacing the U.S. Constitution.[62]
Various proposals were made by Republican members of Congress to base congressional apportionments on the number of citizens in a state rather than residents following the Evenwel v. Abbott decision in 2016.[63]
Representative Al Green introduced an amendment prohibiting the President of the United States from issuing a pardon for themselves.[64]
Representative Cedric Richmond introduced an amendment in the 116th Congress to repeal the penal exception clause from the Thirteenth Amendment, prohibiting unfree labor from being used as a punishment.
Representative Tom Marino introduced an amendment to amend Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution to change the terms of Representatives from two years to four (with elections to be held in non-presidential years), but then resigned afterward. Proposals for extending the terms of House members date back to a similar proposal by Lyndon B. Johnson for 4-year terms, renewable in presidential years, in his 1966 State of the Union Address.
In response to revived advocacy among progressive activists for expansion of the Supreme Court beyond the customary nine members (as the Constitution does not specify how many justices should sit on the court), Democratic Representative Collin Peterson and Republican Representative Denver Riggleman filed a proposed amendment in the 116th Congress to limit the Supreme Court membership to nine members maximum.[68] A group of Republican congressmembers including Senators Ted Cruz and Thom Tillis proposed an identical amendment a few weeks later, in an entirely separate effort from that of Peterson and Riggleman.[69]
President Joe Biden proposed an amendment, known as the No One Is Above the Law Amendment, to supersede the 2024 Supreme Court decision Trump v. United States, which granted presidents immunity for "official acts". The amendment would eliminate all "immunity for crimes a former president committed while in office".[70][71][72] On July 25, Representative Joseph Morelle (D-NY) proposed a constitutional amendment to reverse the ruling, with the support of more than forty other members of Congress.[73]
^ abc"Constitutional Amendment Process". Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. August 15, 2016. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
^Schaffner, Joan (2005). "The Federal Marriage Amendment: To Protect the Sanctity of Marriage or Destroy Constitutional Democracy". GW Law Faculty Publications. 54 (1487): 10.
^Wallenstein, Peter (March 24, 2015). Tell the Court I Love My Wife: Race, Marriage, and Law – An American History. St. Martin's Press. pp. 133–135.
^Ole R., Holsti (2004). Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy. University of Michigan. pp. 17–18. ISBN978-0-472-03011-8.
^Robert C., Cottrell. Roger Nash Baldwin and the American Civil Liberties Union. p. 236.
^Chatfield, Charles (May 1969). "Pacifists and Their Publics: The Politics of a Peace Movement". Midwest Journal of Political Science. 13 (2): 298–312. doi:10.2307/2110180. JSTOR2110180.
^Lemelin, Bernard Lemelin (Winter 1999). "Opposition to the 22nd Amendment: The National Committee Against Limiting the Presidency and its Activities, 1949–1951". Canadian Review of American Studies. 29 (3). University of Toronto Press on behalf of the Canadian Association for American Studies with the support of Carleton University: 133–148. doi:10.3138/CRAS-029-03-06. S2CID159908265.
^Reagan, Ronald (January 18, 1989). "President Reagan Says He Will Fight to Repeal 22nd Amendment". NBC Nightly News (Interview). Interviewed by Tom Brokaw. New York: NBC. Retrieved June 14, 2015.
^Granberg, Donald (June 1985). "The United States Senate Votes to Uphold Roe versus Wade". Population Research and Policy Review. 4 (2). Springer: 115–131. doi:10.1007/BF00127547. JSTOR40229744. S2CID144062929.
^James V. Saturno, "A Balanced Budget Amendment Constitutional Amendment: Procedural Issues and Legislative History", Congressional Research Service Report for Congress No. 98-671, August 5, 1998.