Article V of the Constitution is the rulebook for changing the Constitution. It creates two ways to propose an amendment and two ways to ratify one, and every step requires a supermajority rather than a simple majority. Since 1789, Congress has sent 33 proposed amendments to the states, and 27 have made it all the way through.1Congress.gov. Proposals to Amend the U.S. Constitution: Fact Sheet
The Text of Article V
Article V is one paragraph: “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.”2National Archives. Article V, U.S. Constitution
Packed into that paragraph: two ways to propose, two ways to ratify, and two limits on what an amendment can do.
How an Amendment Gets Proposed
Two-Thirds Vote in Congress
Every amendment in American history began the same way. Both the House and the Senate approve the proposal by a two-thirds vote. In the 1920 National Prohibition Cases, the Supreme Court clarified that this means two-thirds of the members present and voting, provided there’s a quorum, not two-thirds of the entire membership.3Justia. National Prohibition Cases, 253 U.S. 350 (1920) With every seat filled and every member present, that would be 290 votes in the House and 67 in the Senate. The actual number on any given day depends on attendance.
Thousands of amendments have been introduced in Congress over the centuries. Only 33 have cleared the two-thirds bar and been sent to the states.1Congress.gov. Proposals to Amend the U.S. Constitution: Fact Sheet
A Convention Called by the States
The second path skips Congress. If two-thirds of state legislatures, currently 34 out of 50, submit formal applications, Congress must call a convention for proposing amendments.4Congressional Research Service. The Article V Convention to Propose Constitutional Amendments: Contemporary Issues for Congress This route has never been used.5Constitution Annotated. ArtV.1 Overview of Article V, Amending the Constitution
Because it has never been used, basic questions about how a convention would operate remain unsettled. Scholars disagree about whether a convention called on one topic could propose amendments on other subjects, a concern often called the “runaway convention” problem.4Congressional Research Service. The Article V Convention to Propose Constitutional Amendments: Contemporary Issues for Congress The Constitution itself says nothing about how delegates would be chosen, what rules would apply, or who would enforce any topic limit. Those unanswered questions are a big part of why the convention method has stayed on the shelf.
How an Amendment Gets Ratified
A proposal isn’t law until three-fourths of the states approve it. That’s 38 states today. Congress chooses which of the two ratification methods the states will use.6Constitution Annotated. ArtV.4.4 Choosing a Mode of Ratification
Almost always, ratification goes to state legislatures for an up-or-down vote. Twenty-six of the 27 ratified amendments took this route.6Constitution Annotated. ArtV.4.4 Choosing a Mode of Ratification The one exception is the Twenty-First Amendment, which repealed Prohibition. Congress sent that amendment to specially convened state ratifying conventions, in part because many politicians believed questions of individual rights and morals deserved a more direct form of representation than ordinary legislatures.7Constitution Annotated. Amdt21.S3.1 Ratification Deadline, State Ratifying Conventions, and the Twenty-First Amendment
Ratification Deadlines
Article V says nothing about how long states have to ratify. Starting with the Eighteenth Amendment in 1917, Congress began adding a seven-year deadline to most proposals. Every amendment proposed since then has carried a deadline except the Nineteenth, which recognized women’s right to vote.8Legal Information Institute. U.S. Constitution Annotated – ArtV.4.2.1 Congressional Deadlines for Ratification of an Amendment
The absence of a deadline produced one of the strangest episodes in constitutional history. What became the Twenty-Seventh Amendment, which blocks Congress from giving itself an immediate pay raise, was first proposed by James Madison in 1789 alongside the Bill of Rights. States rejected it at the time. Two centuries later, a renewed ratification campaign succeeded, and Michigan pushed it over the finish line on May 7, 1992.9U.S. House of Representatives. The Twenty-seventh Amendment Because the original proposal had no time limit, the late ratification stood.
Where the deadline sits also matters. Sometimes Congress writes the time limit into the amendment’s text; sometimes it puts it only in the proposing resolution, which isn’t part of the constitutional language the states ratify. That distinction drives the ongoing fight over the Equal Rights Amendment. Congress proposed the ERA in 1972 with a seven-year deadline in the proposing clause, later extended to 1982. Thirty-five states ratified by then, three short of 38. Three more states ratified decades later. Whether those late ratifications count is unresolved. The Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel has taken the position that the expired deadline is binding; others argue Congress can remove or modify a deadline after the fact.10Congress.gov. The Equal Rights Amendment: Background and Recent Legal Developments
What Article V Forbids
Article V contains two explicit limits on the amendment power. The first was temporary. A proviso barred any amendment before 1808 from touching two clauses in Article I, Section 9, one of which protected the importation of enslaved people from congressional prohibition until that date.11Congress.gov. ArtI.S9.C1.1 Restrictions on the Slave Trade That restriction expired long ago.
The second restriction is permanent. No state can be deprived of its equal representation in the Senate without its own consent.12Congress.gov. ArtV.5 Equal Suffrage in the Senate Clause Two senators per state, regardless of population, cannot be overridden through the ordinary amendment process. That provision locks in the bargain that made the Constitution possible: large states accepted equal Senate representation for small states, and in return, that bargain was made effectively unamendable.
The President and the Courts Are on the Sidelines
The amendment process is one of the few areas of federal action where the President has no formal role. A proposed amendment does not go to the White House for a signature, and the President cannot veto it.13National Archives. Constitutional Amendment Process The Supreme Court said so directly in the 1798 case Hollingsworth v. Virginia, where Justice Chase wrote that the President “has nothing to do with the proposition, or adoption, of amendments to the Constitution.”14Legal Information Institute. Hollingsworth v. Virginia
Courts have no role in proposing or ratifying either. They can’t vote on amendments and can’t halt the process while it’s running. Their job comes later, when someone challenges the meaning or application of an amendment already in the Constitution.
How Ratification Becomes Official
Once the 38th state ratifies, one administrative step remains. The Office of the Federal Register, part of the National Archives, examines each state’s ratification documents for legal sufficiency and an authenticating signature. Once three-fourths of the states are verified, the Archivist of the United States issues a formal certification declaring the amendment “valid, to all intents and purposes, as a part of the Constitution.”15Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 1 U.S. Code 106b – Amendments to Constitution The certification is then published in the Federal Register and the U.S. Statutes at Large as official notice to Congress and the public.13National Archives. Constitutional Amendment Process The legal force comes from the Archivist’s certificate, whatever ceremony surrounds it.