Unsuccessful attempts to amend the U.S. Constitution
From Freepedia
The United States Constitution has been amended on 18 occasions—with a total of 27 individual successful amendments—since the Constitution was completed in 1787. Far more proposals to amend the country's supreme law are unsuccessful.
Up to 200 amendments are typically proposed in Congress each term. But only 33 such proposals in U.S. history (including the 27 which were ratified) have received the two-thirds vote in Congress necessary to present them to the states. The framers intended that it be difficult to change the Constitution, but not so difficult as to render it an inflexible instrument of government. Their prescription drew upon their experience with the Articles of Confederation, which had been America's previous supreme law since 1781, and which required a unanimous vote of 13 states to amend. This unanimous consensus proved impossible to obtain, and the framers therefore laid out a less stringent process for amending the Constitution in Article V.
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Proposal process
Article V offers two methods of proposing an amendment: by a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress—assuming the presence of a quorum—or by a national convention requested (or "applied" for) by legislatures of at least two-thirds of the states. Only the first method has been used thus far.
Once proposed, a constitutional amendment must then be ratified. Only Congress has the power to choose which of two ratification methods shall be utilized:
- Ratification by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states (38 states with 50 states currently in the Union). Such proposals may have a deadline, but there has been an amendment that took more than 200 years to be ratified after Congressional proposal.
- Ratification by special conventions held in three-fourths of the states. This method has been used once: to ratify the Amendment XXI. Interestingly, by state law, New Mexico has mandated that members of its legislature be the delegates at such a convention conducted in that state.
The second method of proposing an amendment, as yet unused, is the national convention method. If the legislatures of two-thirds of the states (34 states with 50 states currently in the Union) "apply" to Congress for a national convention, Congress is obliged to call one. Any amendment proposed by such a convention would then be considered by the states, and either of the two methods of ratification could be used.
Some constitutional scholars believe the convention-proposing alternative is dangerous; they maintain that it would have no limits on what could be proposed, and could conceivably offer up an entirely new constitution. They note that the convention which produced the present Constitution was assembled only to amend the Articles of Confederation. Others disagree, saying that a convention would be restricted to the subject for which it was assembled, and that even if the convention could propose any amendment that it wanted, such an amendment would still have to be ratified by three-quarters of the states in order to become valid.
Amendments approved by Congress but not ratified by the states
- Article I of the twelve initially proposed amendments in 1789 (1st Congress), ten of which became the Bill of Rights in 1791, and one of which became Amendment XXVII more than 200 years later in 1992. The unratified Article I would have regulated the size of the United States House of Representatives and is still technically pending before, and subject to, ratification by the state legislatures.
- Titles of Nobility amendment proposed in 1810 (the second session of the 11th Congress) and which came extremely close to being ratified by the legislatures of the requisite number of states. It would have provided that if an American citizen were to accept a title of nobility from a foreign nation, his or her American citizenship would have been revoked. It remains pending before, and subject to, ratification by the state legislatures.
- An amendment proposed in 1861 (36th Congress), known as the Corwin amendment, to forbid future constitutional amendments that would permit Congressional interference with State domestic institutions. Specifically, it reads: "No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State." This amendment sought to protect slavery from federal intervention and was a last-ditch effort to avert the outbreak of the American Civil War. While it technically remains pending before, and subject to, ratification by the state legislatures, the subsequent passage of the Amendment XIII renders much of this proposal moot. If belatedly ratified, the Corwin Amendment might not be deemed to pertain to slavery at all.
- A Child labor amendment proposed in 1924 (68th Congress) to grant Congress exclusive authority to legislate on the subject of child labor and to force state law to yield to federal law. It reads: "Section. 1. The Congress shall have power to limit, regulate, and prohibit the labor of persons under eighteen years of age. Section. 2. The power of the several States is unimpaired by this article except that the operation of State laws shall be suspended to the extent necessary to give effect to legislation enacted by the Congress." It remains pending before, and subject to, ratification by the state legislatures.
- The Equal Rights Amendment proposed in 1972 (92nd Congress). It read in pertinent part: "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex." It expired unratified in either 1979 or in 1982 depending upon your point of view relative to the controversial extension of its initially agreed-upon deadline.
- The District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment proposed in 1978 (95th Congress), which—had it been ratified—would have granted to the people of Washington, D.C. the full voting rights in Congress of a U.S. state. It expired unratified in 1985, well short of the necessary approval by lawmakers in three-fourths of the states.
Given the fact that the first four of these unratified amendments are still pending, meaning that they could—however unlikely—still be ratified, Congress initiated the practice in 1917 of placing deadlines on the amendments that it sends to the states for consideration, typically seven years. The only two post-1917 exceptions to this were the Nineteenth Amendment offered in 1919 and ratified in 1920, and the still-pending, anti-child-labor amendment offered in 1924. Hence, the D.C. Voting Rights Amendment has expired and cannot be resurrected without either re-passage by Congress, or re-initiation through application by two-thirds of the state legislatures for a convention for the consideration of the amendments, in either case in accordance with Article V. The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), however, technically may still be ratified as the seven year deadline was contained in the resolving clause and not in the body of the proposed amendment itself.
Amendments not approved by Congress
Since 1789, over 10,000 constitutional amendments have been proposed in Congress. Some are banal, with quiet introductions and equally quiet deaths in committee. Others are the result of intense debate following a controversial vote in Congress or a controversial decision by a court of law—often of the United States Supreme Court—or some other highly-publicized public event.
For example, following the decision of the Supreme Court in the Roe v. Wade case in 1973, several amendments were proposed in Congress. The intent of some, known as Human Life Amendments was to overturn the decision, and the intent of others was to bolster it. In the 93rd Congress, several joint resolutions were introduced in the House of Representatives calling for an amendment to "prohibit abortion from the moment of fertilization" (H.J.RES. 1041) or some other similar language.
Most such joint resolutions fail because they do not garner the required minimum vote of two-thirds (of a quorum) from members in both houses of Congress. In fact, these joint resolutions rarely even make it out of congressional committees.
The list of amendments that were not approved by Congress, then, is quite a long one. Members of Congress are free to propose as many amendments as they wish and on any subjects they please, and often do so several times in the two-year existence of just one term of Congress, and several times during their congressional career. For some members of Congress, the continual reintroduction of amendments is a selling point during re-election campaigns. A listing of the amendments proposed over the course of several Congresses shows many duplicates. Without fail, for example, amendments to abolish the death penalty are introduced several times during each two-year term.
Recently failed amendments
The listing below, which is far from exhaustive, includes some of the hot-topic amendment proposals that have failed to result in an actual submission to the states.
- Bricker Amendment
- Federal Marriage Amendment
- Flag-burning amendment
- Victims' Rights Amendment
- Balanced Budget Amendment
- Equal Opportunity to Govern Amendment
See also: Proposals for amendments to the United States Constitution
External links
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