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This list contains proposed amendments to the United States Constitution. Article Five of the United States Constitution provides for two methods for proposing and two methods for the ratification of an amendment.. An amendment may be proposed by a two-thirds vote of both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a national convention called by Congress at the request of 2/3 of the state legislatures. The latter procedure has never been used. Upon adoption by the Congress or a national convention, an amendment must then be ratified by 3/4 of the state legislatures or by special state ratifying conventions in 3/4 of the states. The decision of which ratification method will be used for any given amendment is Congress' alone to make.[1] Only for the 21st amendment was the latter procedure invoked and followed.
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, and only a fraction of those that do receive enough support to win Congressional approval to actually go through the constitutional ratification process.
Only 33 such proposals have been adopted by Congress since 1789 and presented to the states for ratification, and of these, only 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 13 states for ratification, had proven to be. Therefore, a less stringent process for amending the Constitution was established in Article V.
The framers of the Constitution included a proviso at the end of Article V shielding three clauses in the new frame of government from being amended. They are: Article I, Section 9, Clause 1, concerning the migration and importation of slaves; Article I, Section 9, Clause 4, concerning Congress' taxing power; and, Article I, Section 3, Clause 1, which provides for equal representation of the states in the Senate. These are the only textually entrenched provisions of the Constitution. The shield protecting the first two entrenched clauses was absolute but of limited duration; it was in force only until 1808. The shield protecting the third entrenched clause, though less absolute than that covering the others, is practically permanent; it will be in force until there is unanimous agreement among the states favoring a change.
Beginning in the early 20th century, Congress has usually, but not always, stipulated that an amendment must be ratified by the required number of states within seven years from the date of its submission to the states in order to become part of the Constitution. Congress' authority to set ratification deadline was affirmed by the United States Supreme Court in Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433 (1939).
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:
To become part of the Constitution, an adopted amendment must be ratified by either (as determined by Congress):
Upon being properly ratified, an amendment becomes an operative addition to the Constitution.
Twenty-seven Constitutional Amendments have been ratified since the Constitution was put into operation on March 4, 1789. The first ten amendments were adopted and ratified simultaneously and are known collectively as the Bill of Rights.
Six amendments adopted by Congress and sent to the states have not been ratified by the required number of states. Four of these, including one of the twelve Bill of Rights amendments, are still technically open and pending. The other two amendments are closed and no longer pending, one by terms set within the Congressional Resolution proposing it (†) and the other by terms set within the body of the amendment (‡).
Approximately 11,539 measures have been proposed to amend the Constitution from 1789 through January 2, 2013.[4] The following amendments, while introduced by a member of Congress, either died in committee or did not receive a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress and were therefore not sent to the states for ratification.
Over 1,300 resolutions containing over 1,800 proposals to amend the constitution had been submitted before Congress during the first century of its adoption.[5] Some prominent proposals included:
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