What does it take to get a constitutional amendment ratified in the U.S.?

I don’t mean the actual rules of passing it, I mean what organization, activities and funding are necessary to do so.

The last one passed was in 1992 and it was just about congressional pay. Last one before that was 1971. Is there some kind of play book? It seems to happen so infrequently that it would be hard to study and conditions would vary enough that the last effort wouldn’t be useful as a model.

(“The amendment process is very difficult and time consuming: A proposed amendment must be passed by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, then ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states.” Link)

some_guy ,

A functional government. And that ain’t happening.

captainlezbian ,

First you’d need to unfuck American politics. Like actually. Anything that isn’t drastically necessary and completely unpolitical or wildly popular and supported by a party representing a significant majority of people and states.

To put it into context: this is the equal rights amendment and it was a political shit show. Its text is uncontroversal, already was the law, and also very necessary as when it was proposed women not being fully independent people in the eyes of the law was in living memory. The equal rights amendment is not a part of the United States constitution. Some states repealed ratification. If you want to understand why no amendments will happen the means for that to happen were built to kill the ERA. Modern extreme factionalism and the American right wing committing to antifeminism as a political stance were part of this.

We still need the ERA, it provides protection to everyone regardless of gender by demanding the government treat them regardless of gender. But we need more amendments, more controversial ones, like an explicit right to privacy that no court nor legislature can violate.

I doubt America will survive long enough to get another amendment

jordanlund , (edited )
@jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

It starts one of two ways, either 290 votes in the House of Representatives, or a call for a Constitutional Convention by 34 states.

To give you some idea how hard this is, they recently took 15 votes to get a simple 218 vote majority to pick their own leader. The 290 vote threshhold was surpassed by the 311 vote majority to remove George Santos. That’s the kind of agreement that needs to happen.

Once you get that, it moves to the Senate where you need a 67 vote majority. The Senate has been crippled now with the filibuster requiring a 60 vote minimum to get anything done. 67 on a new amendment is unlikely.

The 34 vote convention path has never actually worked, although 28 states have signed off on a new convention, 6 more are still needed.

However it shakes out, either through the House and Senate or a new constitution, now you need ratification from the State Houses and that’s the tricky bit.

State legislatures will need to vote up or down on it and it takes effect once 38 states pass it.

To put this in perspective, in 2020:
Biden won 25 states, the floating EC vote in Nebraska, and Washington D.C.
Trump won 25 states + the floating EC vote in Maine.

So to get an amendment passed, you need all of one side + 13 from the other side.

Want to ban guns? All 25 Biden states +13 Trump states.

Want to ban abortion? All 25 Trump states +13 Biden states.

But it’s not that easy either…

Remember, the vote is done by statehouses, and of those 25 Biden states, 6 are Republican led.

Melkath ,

Money.

Period.

jeffw ,

The only amendment with any real push behind it is the ERA. And that’s complicated because of how long the process has been.

teodor_from_achewood ,

First step - both chambers of Congress approve a draft amendment by a 2/3rds vote, or a “convention” called by the legislatures of the states (understood to mean 2/3rds of the states) adopts a draft amendment.

Then 3/4ths of the legislatures have to pass the adopted amendment, or conventions in 3/4 of the states (which a state’s legislature can call).

southsamurai ,
@southsamurai@sh.itjust.works avatar

You said it, the details are going to vary too much between specific attempts to give a single answer.

This is one of those rare times that reddit would have been perfect because of r/askhistorians. You could at lest have probably gotten partial answers for specific amendments and cobble together a guesstimate on what a modern effort would take.

But just from a bit of memory based on very old classes, you’d be looking at years of sustained groundwork to build support, and that’s going to be millions to billions of dollars spent in propaganda (which isn’t an inherently negative word when used broadly), and awareness raising, plus man hours beyond my ability to guess.

I know that even that last one took a lot of work to get started.

PhlubbaDubba ,

I forget which one but one of the Supreme Court Justices has stated that they’ve estimated it could take as little as 2% of the national population to halt an amendment by starting from the smallest state and getting half plus 1 in opposition.

The kind of monumental change that a lot of people think this country needs will have to come via a convention, and right now neither side wants to pull that trigger out of fear that the other side will be able to edge them out and inaugurate a constitution that completely wipes out all their issues and positions.

Basically it would require either a compromise of proportions unseen just to even begin talking about it, that or the absolute devastation of one side to the degree that they would be completely incapable of stopping an absolute steamroll at the hypothetical convention.

FireTower ,
@FireTower@lemmy.world avatar

I forget which one but one of the Supreme Court Justices has stated that they’ve estimated it could take as little as 2% of the national population to halt an amendment by starting from the smallest state and getting half plus 1 in opposition.

That would have been Antonin Scalia. He also advocated for lowering the bar to pass amendments.

spujb ,

It seems like you have come to a valid answer yourself? If you could get a better answer, what format would it be in?

LesserAbe OP ,

I don’t know what I don’t know. But as an example, the model of running for president is fairly well established - a national party lends its support to your campaign, you run national ads, you go on speaking tours, you have networks of supporters specific to each state, etc. Their platform tends to be the platform of the national party with minor variations.

Because amendments need 2/3 of both chambers and 3/4 of states that seems to preclude a party based approach, or does it? How much of ratified amendments’ passing was because of some confluence of historical factors vs a preplanned and organized effort?

When I talk with someone from any line of work they inevitably have interesting things to say about their field that wouldn’t have occurred to me. What are those things in the field of “passing constitutional amendments?”

Ultimately I ask because I want to see a bunch of amendments ratified, I don’t exactly have confidence they will be but would love to see more discussion.

spujb ,

party based approach

yes, the supermajority requirement definitely precludes a monolithic single-party approach. parties can still be involved, but the word you are looking for is “bipartisanship.” given all historical amendments, both leading parties need to have significant approval, though of course the degree of this varies. i believe the most partisan amendment was the 13th which only was successfully passed when several democrats volunteered to switch sides. nevertheless both parties were still very much involved.

historical factors vs organized effort

these are poorly defined terms unfortunately. historical factors also influence organized effort, and vice versa. there’s too much overlap to make any meaningful statements on these terms.

the reason you won’t get “industry tips” for this process is because there is barely a market for it. your example of the presidential campaign “line of work” illustrates this well; presidential campaigns happen every four years for not one, but dozens of candidates.

it’s sort of like you’re asking “how do i build the next Apple Inc.?” the only answers that fit in a comment section are

a) the socioeconomic factors are incalculable and any neatly wrapped answer you got delivered to your door by an angel would become out of date within weeks OR

b) a funk ton of money

postmateDumbass ,

If a single party could force thru amendments they halt all elections via amendment.

spujb ,

exactly. there’s a reason we see more supreme court stacking these days than amendment campaigns.

stinerman ,
@stinerman@midwest.social avatar

The amendment process is basically dead because the politicians realized that it’s much easier to just get a majority of the Supreme Court to say what you want it to say.

BaroqueInMind ,

It would take a new Constitutional Convention to be proposed, where every single state will demand presence. Nothing will survive a vote unless it is a two-thirds majority.

It would take a fucking massive financial investment in some grassroots organization to start the ball rolling with signature petitions circulating every human alive in every state to even be considered slightly noticeable by the media, then it might take off.

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