Article V of the Constitution is the section that spells out how the document itself can be changed. It offers two ways to propose an amendment: Congress can send one to the states by a two-thirds vote of both the House and the Senate, or two-thirds of state legislatures can force Congress to call a national convention. Whichever path a proposal takes, it becomes part of the Constitution only after three-fourths of the states ratify it.1National Archives. Article V, U.S. Constitution Since 1789, thousands of amendments have been introduced. Only 27 have made it through.
Proposing an Amendment Through Congress
Every ratified amendment so far has started the same way. A member of the House or Senate introduces a joint resolution containing the exact language of the proposed amendment. Both chambers then have to approve it by a two-thirds vote.
The two-thirds requirement counts members present and voting, not the full membership of each chamber. The Supreme Court settled that in the National Prohibition Cases (1920), holding that a quorum must exist but the fraction runs against those actually voting.2Constitution Annotated. ArtV.1 Overview of Article V, Amending the Constitution In a close vote that distinction can decide whether a proposal moves forward.
The President has no role. A proposed amendment does not go to the White House for signature and cannot be vetoed. In Hollingsworth v. Virginia (1798), Justice Chase wrote that the veto power “applies only to the ordinary cases of legislation: He has nothing to do with the proposition, or adoption, of amendments to the Constitution.”3Legal Information Institute. Hollingsworth v. Virginia, 3 U.S. 378 (1798) Once both chambers pass the resolution, the proposal goes straight to the states.
The Convention Route
Article V also lets the states bypass Congress. If two-thirds of state legislatures (currently 34 of 50) submit formal applications, Congress must call a national convention to propose amendments.1National Archives. Article V, U.S. Constitution It has never happened. No convention for proposing amendments has been held since the original Constitutional Convention of 1787, which leaves this the most debated and least tested piece of the article.
Because it has never been used, the ground rules are unsettled. The Constitution does not say how delegates would be chosen, whether states would vote equally or by population, or what internal procedures would apply. Those questions would have to be answered by Congress, by the states, or by some combination of the two, and none of it has ever been litigated.
The sharpest dispute is whether a convention can be confined to a single subject. States often frame their applications around a particular topic, such as a balanced budget or congressional term limits. A Congressional Research Service report captured the split: some scholars maintain a convention “may be limited to a specific issue or issues contained in state applications,” while others assert that “the language of Article V places no limitation on either the number or the scope of amendments” a convention could consider.4Congress.gov. The Article V Convention to Propose Constitutional Amendments Fear of a “runaway convention” is a major reason state application counts have occasionally approached, but never crossed, the 34-state threshold.
Whatever a convention proposed would still have to be ratified by three-fourths of the states, the same threshold that applies to congressional proposals. That backstop limits how far any convention product could actually go.
How States Ratify
Once an amendment is proposed, Congress decides which of two ratification methods will apply: approval by three-fourths of state legislatures (38 of 50), or approval by specially convened ratifying conventions in three-fourths of the states.2Constitution Annotated. ArtV.1 Overview of Article V, Amending the Constitution Nearly every amendment has gone through state legislatures. The only exception is the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed Prohibition in 1933 through state conventions.5Legal Information Institute. Ratification by Conventions
State legislatures acting on a federal amendment are not doing ordinary lawmaking. In Hawke v. Smith (1920), the Supreme Court held that ratification is the “expression of the assent of the state” to a change in the federal Constitution, with authority flowing from Article V itself.6Legal Information Institute. Hawke v. Smith, 253 U.S. 221 (1920) Governors do not get a veto, and states cannot bolt on extra steps like a public referendum.
As states approve, they send ratification documents to the Archivist of the United States. The Office of the Federal Register reviews each one for legal sufficiency and a proper authenticating signature.7National Archives. Constitutional Amendment Process When 38 valid ratifications are in hand, the Archivist certifies and publishes the amendment. Federal law, at 1 U.S.C. ยง 106b, directs the Archivist to publish it as “valid, to all intents and purposes, as a part of the Constitution of the United States.”8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 1 USC 106b – Archivist of the United States
Deadlines for Ratification
Article V says nothing about time limits. Congress began adding a seven-year deadline to its proposals starting with the Eighteenth Amendment in 1917, and the practice has been nearly universal since, with the Nineteenth Amendment (women’s suffrage) being a notable exception.9Congress.gov. Congressional Deadlines for Ratification of an Amendment
Whether Congress can extend a deadline once set is contested. In 2020, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel advised that Congress cannot extend or revive a ratification deadline for a pending amendment without restarting the Article V process from the beginning.9Congress.gov. Congressional Deadlines for Ratification of an Amendment That opinion applied directly to the Equal Rights Amendment, which reached the 38-state threshold long after its original window and a congressional extension had passed.
When Congress sets no deadline, a proposal never expires. The 27th Amendment, which prevents any congressional pay raise from taking effect before the next House election, was drafted by James Madison and sent to the states in 1789. Only six states ratified it then. It sat dormant for nearly two centuries until state ratifications resumed in the late twentieth century and Michigan pushed it past three-fourths on May 7, 1992.10U.S. House of Representatives. The Twenty-seventh Amendment The Archivist certified it because no deadline had ever been attached.11Constitution Annotated. Ratification of the Twenty-Seventh Amendment A 202-year gap made no legal difference.
Can a State Take Back Its Vote
Two questions come up often. Can a state that voted no later switch to yes? And can a state that already ratified rescind its ratification?
A later yes has generally been accepted. A later no has not. In Coleman v. Miller (1939), the Supreme Court treated both questions as political matters for Congress rather than courts. The Court pointed to the Fourteenth Amendment: when Congress declared it ratified in 1868, it counted several states that had originally rejected it and then reversed, while treating two states that tried to rescind their earlier approvals as still bound by their first votes.12Constitution Annotated. Effect of Prior Rejection of an Amendment or Rescission of Ratification
In practice, walking back a ratification is very hard. Congress has the last word, and the precedent that exists points toward treating rescissions as ineffective, though scholars note the Fourteenth Amendment arose under the unusual conditions of Reconstruction and the same reasoning might not carry in a calmer setting.12Constitution Annotated. Effect of Prior Rejection of an Amendment or Rescission of Ratification
What Article V Cannot Change
The amendment power has one permanent limit. No state can be deprived of its equal representation in the Senate without that state’s own consent.13Congress.gov. Constitution of the United States – Article V Every state gets two senators, and no amendment, even one supported by the other 49 states, can strip a state of that equal seat without its agreement.
How Rare Successful Amendments Actually Are
Estimates put the number of amendments introduced in Congress since 1789 above 11,000. Only 27 have been ratified. The first ten, the Bill of Rights, went through together in 1791 as part of the deal that secured the original Constitution’s ratification. That leaves 17 amendments in the more than 230 years since, roughly one every 13 or 14 years on average.
The pace has slowed. The 27th Amendment was certified in 1992, and before that the 26th (lowering the voting age to 18) was ratified in 1971. No new amendment has been proposed by Congress and sent to the states since 1978. The framers built Article V to be slow and hard rather than fast and easy, and the numbers show it working as designed.