Article Five of the United States Constitution

==Procedures for amending the Constitution==

Thirty-three amendments to the United States Constitution have been approved by the Congress and sent to the states for ratification. Twenty-seven of these amendments have been ratified and are now part of the Constitution. 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 and are not part of the Constitution. Four of these amendments are still technically open and pending, one is closed and has failed by its own terms, and one is closed and has failed by the terms of the resolution proposing it. All totaled, more than 10,000 measures to amend the Constitution have been proposed in Congress. Proposing amendments Article V provides two methods for amending the nation's frame of government. The first method authorizes Congress, "whenever two-thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary," to propose constitutional amendments. The second method requires Congress, "on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the several states" (34 ), to "call a convention for proposing amendments". This duality in Article V is the result of compromises made during the 1787 Constitutional Convention between two groups, one maintaining that the national legislature should have no role in the constitutional amendment process and another contending that proposals to amend the constitution should originate in the national legislature and their ratification should be decided by state legislatures or state conventions. Regarding the consensus amendment process crafted during the convention, James Madison (writing in The Federalist No. 43) declared: Each time the Article V process has been initiated since 1789, the first method for crafting and proposing amendments has been used. All 33 amendments submitted to the states for ratification originated in Congress. The second method, the convention option, a political tool that Alexander Hamilton (writing in the Federalist No. 85) argued would enable state legislatures to "erect barriers against the encroachments of the national authority," has yet to be invoked. When the 1st Congress considered a series of constitutional amendments, it was suggested that the two houses first adopt a resolution indicating that they deemed amendments necessary. This procedure was not used. Instead, both the House and the Senate proceeded directly to consideration of a joint resolution, thereby implying that both bodies deemed amendments to be necessary. Also, when initially proposed by James Madison, the amendments were designed to be interwoven into the relevant sections of the original document. Once approved by Congress, the joint resolution proposing a constitutional amendment does not require presidential approval before it goes out to the states. While Article I Section 7 provides that all federal legislation must, before becoming Law, be presented to the president for his or her signature or veto, Article V provides no such requirement for constitutional amendments approved by Congress or by a federal convention. Thus, the president has no official function in the process. In Hollingsworth v. Virginia (1798), the Supreme Court affirmed that it is not necessary to place constitutional amendments before the president for approval or veto. Ratification of amendments certificate of ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment. With this ratification, the amendment became valid as a part of the Constitution. After being officially proposed, either by Congress or a national convention of the states, a constitutional amendment must then be ratified by three-fourths (38 out of 50) of the states. Congress is authorized to choose whether a proposed amendment is sent to the state legislatures or to state ratifying conventions for ratification. Amendments ratified by the states under either procedure are indistinguishable and have equal validity as part of the Constitution. Of the 33 amendments submitted to the states for ratification, the state convention method has been used for only one, the Twenty-first Amendment. The Court had earlier, in Hawke v. Smith (1920), upheld the Ohio General Assembly's ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment—which Congress had sent to the state legislatures for ratification—after Ohio voters successfully vetoed that approval through a popular referendum, ruling that a provision in the Ohio Constitution reserving to the state's voters the right to challenge and overturn its legislature's ratification of federal constitutional amendments was unconstitutional. An amendment becomes an operative part of the Constitution when it is ratified by the necessary number of states, rather than on the later date when its ratification is certified. No further action by Congress or anyone is required. On three occasions, Congress has, after being informed that an amendment has reached the ratification threshold, adopted a resolution declaring the process successfully completed. Such actions, while perhaps important for political reasons, are, constitutionally speaking, unnecessary. The archivist of the United States is charged with responsibility for administering the ratification process under the provisions of 1 U.S. Code . The archivist officially notifies the states, by a registered letter to each state's Governor, that an amendment has been proposed. Each Governor then formally submits the amendment to their state's legislature (or ratifying convention). When a state ratifies a proposed amendment, it sends the archivist an original or certified copy of the state's action. Upon receiving the necessary number of state ratifications, it is the duty of the archivist to issue a certificate proclaiming a particular amendment duly ratified and part of the Constitution. The amendment and its certificate of ratification are then published in the Federal Register and United States Statutes at Large. This serves as official notice to Congress and to the nation that the ratification process has been successfully completed. ==Ratification deadline and extension==

The Constitution is silent on the issue of whether or not Congress may limit the length of time that the states have to ratify constitutional amendments sent for their consideration. It is also silent on the issue of whether or not Congress, once it has sent an amendment that includes a ratification deadline to the states for their consideration, can extend that deadline. Deadlines The practice of limiting the time available to the states to ratify proposed amendments began in 1917 with the Eighteenth Amendment. All amendments proposed since then, with the exception of the Nineteenth Amendment and the (still pending) Child Labor Amendment, have included a time limit of seven years to ratify the amendment, either in the body of the proposed amendment, or in the joint resolution transmitting it to the states. The ratification deadline "clock" begins running on the day final action is completed in Congress. An amendment may be ratified at any time after final congressional action, even if the states have not yet been officially notified. The court subsequently, in Coleman v. Miller (1939), modified its opinion considerably. In that case, related to the proposed Child Labor Amendment, it held that the question of timeliness of ratification is a political and non-justiciable one, leaving the issue to Congress's discretion. It would appear that the length of time elapsing between proposal and ratification is irrelevant to the validity of the amendment. Based upon this precedent, the Archivist of the United States, on May 7, 1992, proclaimed the Twenty-seventh Amendment as having been ratified when it surpassed the "three fourths of the several states" plateau for becoming a part of the Constitution. It had been submitted to the states for ratification—without a ratification deadline—on September 25, 1789, an unprecedented time period of . The Supreme Court had decided to take up the case, bypassing the Court of Appeals, but before they could hear the case, the extended period granted by Congress had been exhausted without the necessary number of states, thus rendering the case moot. ==Constitutional clauses shielded from amendment==

Article V also contains two statements that prohibit amending three clauses in Article I. • The first prohibition is obsolete due to a sunset provision: two clauses of Section 9 were not amendable until 1808. • Clause 1, which prevented Congress from passing any law to restrict the importation of slaves prior to 1808, and • Clause 4, a declaration that direct taxes must be apportioned according to state populations, as described in Article I, Section 2, Clause 3. • The second prohibition was not given an expiration date and remains in effect. It provides that no amendment shall deprive a state of its equal representation in the Senate, as described in Section 3, Clause 1, without that state's consent. Designed to seal two compromises reached at the Constitutional Convention after contentious debates, these are the only entrenched provisions of the Constitution. The guarantee of equal suffrage in the Senate is arguably subject to being amended through the procedures outlined within the article. ==Exclusive means for amending the Constitution==

According to constitutional theorist and scholar Lawrence G. Sager, there is debate among commentators about whether Article V is the exclusive means of amending the Constitution, or whether there are routes to amendment, including some routes in which the Constitution could be unconsciously or unwittingly amended in a period of sustained political activity on the part of a mobilized national constituency. For example, Akhil Amar rejects the notion that Article V excludes other modes of constitutional change, arguing instead that the procedure provided for in Article V is simply the exclusive method the government may use to amend the Constitution. He asserts that Article V nowhere prevents the People themselves, acting apart from ordinary Government, from exercising their legal right to alter or abolish Government via the proper legal procedures. Other scholars disagree. Some argue that the Constitution itself provides no mechanism for the American people to adopt constitutional amendments independently of Article V. Darren Patrick Guerra has argued that Article V is a vital part of the American constitutional tradition and he defends it against modern critiques that Article V is either too difficult, too undemocratic, or too formal. Instead he argues that Article V provides a clear and stable way of amending the document that is explicit, authentic, and the exclusive means of amendment; it promotes wisdom and justice through enhancing deliberation and prudence; and its process complements federalism and separation of powers that are key features of the Constitution. He argues that Article V remains the most clear and powerful way to register the sovereign desires of the American public with regard to alterations of their fundamental law. In the end, Article V is an essential bulwark to maintaining a written Constitution that secures the rights of the people against both elites and themselves. The view that the Article V amendment process is the only legitimate vehicle for bringing about constitutional change is, as pointed out by constitutional law scholar Joel K. Goldstein, "challenged by numerous widely-accepted judicial decisions that have introduced new meaning into constitutional language by departing from original intentions, expectations, or meaning". He also points out how constitutional institutions have, independent of both judicial activity and alterations effected though the Article V process, evolved "to take forms inconsistent with what the Founders imagined or the language they wrote suggested". In his farewell address, President George Washington said: If in the opinion of the People the distribution or modification of the Constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield. This statement by Washington has become controversial, and scholars disagree about whether it still describes the proper constitutional order in the United States. Scholars who dismiss Washington's position often argue that the Constitution itself was adopted without following the procedures in the Articles of Confederation, while constitutional attorney Michael Farris disagrees, saying the convention was a product of the states' residual power, and the amendment in adoption process was legal, having received the unanimous assent of the states' legislatures. ==Amending Article V==

Article V lays out the procedures for amending the Constitution, but it does not explicitly state whether those procedures apply to Article V itself. According to law professor George Mader, there have been numerous proposals to amend the Constitution's amending procedures, and "it is generally accepted that constitutional amending provisions can be used to amend themselves." Even so, Article V has never been amended. ==See also==