Proposed Amendments: Where They Stand
Only 27 amendments have ever been ratified. Thousands have been proposed. Here is the current status of every significant amendment effort, from proposals stuck in committee to the decades-long battle over the Equal Rights Amendment.
How the Amendment Process Works
Amending the Constitution is intentionally difficult. The Framers wanted the Constitution to be durable and resistant to momentary popular passions, while not being so rigid that genuine reform was impossible. Article V sets out the process, and it requires extraordinary consensus at every step.
Since 1789, Congress has considered approximately 12,000 proposed amendments. Only 33 have ever been approved by Congress and sent to the states. Of those, 27 have been ratified. That is a ratification rate of roughly one amendment every eight years across the entire history of the republic.
The six proposals that reached the states but were never ratified are the Congressional Apportionment Amendment (1789), the Titles of Nobility Amendment (1810), the Corwin Amendment (1861), the Child Labor Amendment (1924), the Equal Rights Amendment (1972), and the District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment (1978).
The most recent amendment, the Twenty-seventh, was ratified in 1992, and the one before it, the Twenty-sixth, lowered the voting age to 18 in 1971. The full list is on the amendments page.
Two Ways to Propose an Amendment
Congressional Proposal
Two-thirds of both the House and the Senate must approve the proposed amendment text. This is a supermajority: with a 100-member Senate, that means 67 votes. With a 435-member House, that means 290 votes.
Used for all 27 ratified amendments
Article V Convention
Two-thirds of state legislatures (34 of 50) may apply to Congress to call a convention for proposing amendments. Congress must then call the convention. The convention proposes amendments, which must still be ratified by three-fourths of states.
Never used in American history
Two Ways to Ratify an Amendment
Once an amendment is proposed, it must be ratified by three-fourths of the states, currently 38 of 50. Congress chooses which ratification method to use.
State Legislatures
The legislature of each state votes to ratify. This is the method used for 26 of the 27 ratified amendments, with the only exception being the 21st Amendment (Prohibition repeal).
State Ratifying Conventions
Each state holds a special convention to vote on ratification. Used only once, for the 21st Amendment in 1933. Congress chose this method specifically because it believed state legislators might not vote to repeal Prohibition even if their constituents wanted it.
The Full Process, Step by Step
Step 1
Introduction in Congress
A member of the House or Senate introduces a joint resolution proposing an amendment. In a typical recent Congress, about 70 to 80 such resolutions are introduced, by the Senate's count. The vast majority die in committee without a vote.
Step 2
Committee Review
The resolution is referred to the relevant committee, usually the Senate or House Judiciary Committee. The committee may hold hearings, mark up the text, vote it out of committee, or simply let it die without action. Most proposals end here.
Step 3
Floor Vote in Both Chambers
If a committee reports the resolution favorably, it goes to the full chamber for a vote. Both the House and Senate must approve the identical text by a two-thirds supermajority. No presidential signature is required. The president has no formal role in the constitutional amendment process.
Step 4
Sent to the States
Once both chambers approve the text, the Office of the Federal Register transmits the proposed amendment and its congressional resolution to the governors of all 50 states, who pass it to their state legislatures. Congress may set a deadline for ratification, typically seven years, but this is not required by the Constitution.
Step 5
State Ratification
Each state legislature votes on the proposed amendment. States may ratify in any order. There is no deadline for action unless Congress set one. A state that votes no may later vote yes. Whether a state that votes yes may later rescind its ratification is legally unsettled, though historically, rescissions have generally not been recognized by Congress.
Step 6
Archivist Certification
Once 38 states have ratified, the Archivist of the United States certifies that the amendment has been ratified and publishes it in the Federal Register. The amendment becomes part of the Constitution when the 38th state ratifies it, as the Supreme Court said in Dillon v. Gloss (1921); the certification is the formal notice that this has happened.
Did You Know?
The 27th Amendment, which prevents Congress from giving itself an immediate pay raise, was proposed in 1789 alongside the Bill of Rights. It was not ratified until 1992, more than 202 years later, after a University of Texas student named Gregory Watson discovered it and launched a grassroots campaign.
The president has no formal role in the amendment process. Presidents may advocate for or against proposed amendments, but their signature is not required and their veto does not apply.
Congress has only set ratification deadlines since the 18th Amendment (Prohibition) in 1917. Four amendments pending with the states have no deadline at all and are technically still open for ratification.
Only 33 proposed amendments have ever been approved by Congress and sent to the states. Of those, 27 were ratified and 6 were not. The six failed amendments cover the Congressional Apportionment Amendment (1789), Titles of Nobility (1810), the Corwin Amendment on slavery (1861), Child Labor (1924), the ERA (1972), and D.C. Voting Rights (1978).
Amendments Pending with the States
These amendments were approved by Congress and sent to the states but have not yet been ratified by the required 38 states. Four have no ratification deadline and remain technically open. The ERA has a contested deadline.
38 states must ratify for an amendment to be added to the Constitution. Currently 50 states exist, so 38 is exactly three-fourths.
Most Contested
Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)
Proposed by Congress
March 22, 1972
Original deadline
March 22, 1979
Extended deadline
June 30, 1982
States ratified
38 of 38 needed*
States rescinded
5 attempted
Archivist certified
No
* Disputed. See below.
The ERA would add a guarantee that equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. Congress approved it in 1972 with a seven-year ratification deadline. Thirty-five states ratified it by the original deadline. Congress extended the deadline to 1982, but still only 35 states had ratified when it expired.
In 2017, Nevada ratified the ERA, followed by Illinois in 2018 and Virginia in 2020, bringing the total to 38, the exact number required. Supporters argue the ERA is now the 28th Amendment. Opponents raise two obstacles: the deadline had already expired before those three states ratified, and five states attempted to rescind their earlier ratifications in the 1970s.
The amendment passed the House 354-24 in October 1971 and the Senate 84-8 on March 22, 1972. Hawaii ratified it the same day, the first state to do so.
Supporters also point to how the Court treats sex discrimination today. Since Reed v. Reed (1971) and Craig v. Boren (1976), laws that classify by sex receive intermediate scrutiny under the Fourteenth Amendment, a standard ERA supporters argue is weaker than the strict scrutiny applied to race.
The ERA's ratification deadline appeared in the preamble of the congressional joint resolution, not in the amendment text itself. ERA supporters argue Article V contains no authority for Congress to impose a deadline on state ratifications, making the deadline legally unenforceable. Opponents and the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (in 2020) concluded the deadline was valid and enforceable and that the ERA had legally expired. A 2022 opinion left that conclusion in place but said it does not stop Congress or the courts from deciding otherwise. In Illinois v. Ferriero (2023), the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal of a suit by two of the late-ratifying states because they had not shown a clear right to an order against the Archivist, without ruling on the deadline itself. The Ninth Circuit rejected the claim that the ERA was ratified in Valame v. Trump (July 2025, reissued as a published opinion that November), and the Supreme Court declined to review that ruling on June 22, 2026. In April 2026 a federal judge in Massachusetts rejected the deadline argument in Equal Means Equal v. Trump, a ruling now on appeal to the First Circuit.
Congress passed the ERA on March 22, 1972, with a seven-year deadline ending in March 1979. When ratifications stalled, Congress extended the deadline to June 30, 1982, by a simple majority vote, an extension that was itself challenged as improper.
Three states ratified long after the deadline: Nevada in 2017, Illinois in 2018, and Virginia in January 2020, bringing the claimed total to 38.
The courts have weighed in before. In 1981 a federal judge in Idaho ruled the extension invalid and the rescissions valid, but the Supreme Court set that ruling aside as moot in 1982 after the extended deadline passed. Such disputes move through the federal courts.
Nebraska, Tennessee, Idaho, Kentucky, and South Dakota attempted to rescind their ratifications in the 1970s. Whether a state may legally rescind its ratification of a constitutional amendment is an unresolved constitutional question. When Ohio and New Jersey voted to rescind their ratifications of the 14th Amendment in 1868, Congress counted those states as ratifying anyway. The American Bar Association passed a resolution in 2024 stating that Article V does not permit a state to rescind its ratification once given.
The Supreme Court has suggested that Congress, not the courts, should decide such questions. In Coleman v. Miller (1939), a case about Kansas and the Child Labor Amendment, the Court treated the timeliness of ratifications and the effect of an earlier rejection as political questions for Congress.
The Fourteenth Amendment is the key precedent. Ohio and New Jersey voted to rescind their ratifications in 1868, yet Congress's July 1868 resolution declaring the amendment ratified listed both as ratifying states. The Fourteenth Amendment page covers that ratification.
Supporters and opponents of the ERA read that history differently: supporters say it shows rescissions do not count, while opponents note that Congress in 1868 also had enough ratifications without the disputed states. The full list of ratified amendments is on the amendments page.
The Archivist of the United States is required by federal statute to certify and publish an amendment once ratified by the required number of states. The Archivist has declined to certify the ERA, citing DOJ guidance that the amendment expired. President Biden declared in January 2025 that the ERA was the law of the land but did not order the Archivist to certify it. President Trump fired the Archivist in early 2025 and named Secretary of State Marco Rubio as acting Archivist, a role Rubio held until February 2026. The Senate confirmed Bradford P. Wilson as the 12th Archivist on August 7, 2026, and he has not certified the ERA. As of November 2026, litigation over the government's refusal to recognize the ERA continues in the federal courts.
The certification duty has moved over time. The Secretary of State certified amendments until 1951, when the job passed to the head of the General Services Administration, and since 1984 it has belonged to the Archivist, who heads the National Archives and Records Administration.
The certification is usually routine. When Michigan became the 38th state to ratify the long-pending congressional pay amendment in May 1992, Archivist Don Wilson certified it as the Twenty-seventh Amendment within days, and Congress then passed resolutions accepting it. See the amendments page.
In December 2024, the Archivist and Deputy Archivist publicly stated that they could not certify the ERA, citing the court rulings and Justice Department opinions on the deadline.
In the 119th Congress, H.J.Res. 80 and S.J.Res. 38 propose to retroactively establish the ERA's ratification and remove the deadline obstacle by simple majority vote. Whether a simple majority can accomplish what required a two-thirds supermajority to propose is itself contested. Neither resolution has passed as of November 2026.
Earlier efforts came close. In March 2021 the House of Representatives passed a resolution to remove the deadline, 222-204, and in April 2023 a similar Senate resolution won a 51-47 majority but fell short of the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster.
Supporters of the majority-vote approach argue that the deadline sits in the resolution's preamble, not in the amendment's text, and that Congress, which extended it by simple majority in 1978, can remove it the same way. Opponents respond that the deadline was part of the package states considered when they ratified, and cannot be changed after the fact.
Congressional resolutions like these follow the same path as other measures, described on how a bill becomes law, except that a proposed constitutional amendment needs no signature from the president.
Four Amendments with No Deadline (Technically Still Open)
Four amendments that Congress sent to the states without a ratification deadline have never been ratified, and because they contain no deadline, they remain technically open. The 27th Amendment proved this can work: it was proposed in 1789 and ratified in 1992.
Would have established a formula for House apportionment tied to population, preventing the House from growing too large or too small relative to the national population. Eleven states ratified it in the 1790s. Ironically, because the formula was tied to a specific population threshold and the U.S. population has grown far beyond it, the amendment's practical effect today is unclear. It remains technically open but receives virtually no attention.
It was the very first of the twelve amendments Congress sent to the states in September 1789, sometimes called Article the First. Ten of the others became the Bill of Rights.
The formula contained a drafting error: as written, its rules could not all be satisfied at certain population levels, and historians generally attribute the problem to last-minute changes made in conference between the House and Senate.
Because the formula sets only a maximum of one representative per 50,000 people, today's House of 435 members would already comply with it. The size of the House and how seats are divided among states are explained on the census and apportionment page.
Would have stripped U.S. citizenship from any American who accepted a title of nobility from a foreign government without the consent of Congress, beyond the existing constitutional prohibition on holding such titles. Twelve states ratified it. It was nearly ratified in the early 1800s and was mistakenly believed by some to have been ratified as the original 13th Amendment, but the count was never confirmed. It remains technically open.
Congress passed the amendment by wide margins in 1810: 19-5 in the Senate and 87-3 in the House, at a time when Americans worried about European influence during the Napoleonic Wars.
The Constitution already barred federal officeholders from accepting titles or presents from foreign governments without congressional consent, under the Emoluments Clause of Article I. The amendment would have extended the rule to all citizens and made loss of citizenship the penalty.
The confusion began when Virginia printed the proposal alongside the Constitution in its 1819 legal code, and several states and territories copied it as the Thirteenth Amendment in official publications through the 1870s. The actual list is on the amendments page.
Proposed just before the Civil War, the Corwin Amendment would have made it permanently unconstitutional for Congress to interfere with a state's domestic institutions, meaning slavery. It was a last-ditch attempt to prevent Southern secession. Five states took ratifying action (Kentucky, Ohio, Rhode Island, Maryland, and Illinois) before the Civil War rendered it politically dead. The 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, effectively superseded it in spirit. The Corwin Amendment remains technically open because it has no deadline.
The amendment was named for Representative Thomas Corwin of Ohio. It passed the House 133-65 on February 28, 1861, and the Senate 24-12 on March 2, just two days before Abraham Lincoln took office.
In his first inaugural address on March 4, 1861, Lincoln referred to the proposal and said he had no objection to making it express and irrevocable, since he did not believe the federal government had power over slavery in the states anyway. The Civil War page covers the secession crisis.
Two of the ratifying states later took their approval back: Ohio in 1864 and Maryland in 2014. The Black American history page covers the struggle that ended with the Thirteenth Amendment.
Would have granted Congress the power to regulate or prohibit labor by persons under 18 years of age, responding to the Supreme Court's rulings that federal child labor laws exceeded Congress's commerce power. Twenty-eight states ratified it. Congress later found other constitutional bases for regulating child labor under the Fair Labor Standards Act (1938), reducing political pressure for the amendment. It remains technically open and requires only 10 more state ratifications, making it the closest unratified no-deadline amendment to the finish line.
The rulings it answered were Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918), which struck down a federal ban on shipping goods made with child labor across state lines, and Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co. (1922), which struck down a federal tax on companies employing children.
Congress proposed the amendment on June 2, 1924. A dispute over whether Kansas could ratify it after earlier rejecting it reached the Supreme Court in Coleman v. Miller (1939), still the leading case on how the ratification process works.
The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 regulated child labor directly, and in United States v. Darby (1941) the Court upheld the law and overruled Hammer v. Dagenhart. Enforcement now falls to the Department of Labor.
* States needed calculated based on current count of 50 states. When the Corwin and Apportionment amendments were proposed, fewer states existed. The Corwin count of five includes Ohio and Maryland, which later rescinded.
Proposals in the 119th Congress (2025-2026)
About 70 to 80 amendment proposals are introduced in each recent two-year Congress, by the Senate's count. The vast majority die in committee. These are the proposals receiving the most attention as of November 2026.
Important Note
None of the proposals listed here have passed Congress or been sent to the states. Each would require a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate before the ratification process could begin. USGovExplained.org presents these proposals factually and does not advocate for or against any of them.
Multiple versions of congressional term limits amendments have been introduced in the 119th Congress. H.J.Res. 5 would limit House members to six two-year terms (12 years) and Senators to two six-year terms (12 years). H.J.Res. 12 proposes stricter limits: three House terms and two Senate terms. Term limits polls consistently well across party lines, often receiving support from 70 to 80 percent of Americans in surveys.
An amendment is needed because of U.S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton (1995), in which the Supreme Court held 5-4 that states cannot add term limits for their members of Congress to the qualifications the Constitution sets. The House of Representatives page covers the current qualifications for office.
Key Obstacle
The structural obstacle is enormous: the amendment would require sitting members of Congress to vote to end their own careers. No term limits amendment has come close to a floor vote in either chamber in decades. Advocates have increasingly focused on the Article V convention route as a workaround, since state legislators rather than federal members would drive that process.
Who Supports It
Supported broadly by voters across party lines. Convention of States Action and other term limits advocacy groups push the Article V route.
Multiple balanced budget amendment versions have been introduced. The version that advanced furthest, H.J.Res. 139, was reported favorably out of the House Judiciary Committee in February 2026. On March 18, 2026, the House voted on it 211 to 207, well short of the two-thirds needed, so it failed. It would prohibit federal expenditures from exceeding average revenues over the prior three years adjusted for population and inflation, with exceptions requiring a two-thirds supermajority for deficit spending.
The idea has come close before. In 1995 the House passed a balanced budget amendment 300-132, and the Senate fell a single vote short of the required two-thirds, 65-35. The federal budget and national debt pages explain the fiscal background.
Key Obstacle
Economists across the political spectrum debate whether constitutionally mandating a balanced budget is wise policy: during recessions and national emergencies, deficit spending has historically been a key economic stabilization tool. A balanced budget requirement could force spending cuts or tax increases during downturns, potentially worsening them. Supporters argue it is the only mechanism strong enough to force long-term fiscal discipline.
Who Supports It
A priority for many House Republicans. The National Taxpayers Union and Americans for Prosperity are among the major advocacy groups. Has historically attracted some Democratic support as well, particularly from fiscally conservative Democrats.
Proposals to replace the Electoral College with a national popular vote for president have been introduced in virtually every Congress for decades. A constitutional amendment would require winning candidates to be whoever receives the most popular votes nationwide, eliminating the state-by-state winner-take-all system used by most states. This approach differs from the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which attempts to achieve the same result through state law rather than a constitutional amendment.
The closest attempt came in 1969, when the House approved a direct-election amendment 338-70, but a Senate filibuster stopped it the following year. The Electoral College page explains how the current system works.
Key Obstacle
Ratification would require 38 state legislatures to approve it. Small states and rural states benefit from the current Electoral College, and their legislators have little incentive to approve an amendment that reduces their states' relative influence. This structural obstacle is widely considered effectively insurmountable under the congressional proposal route.
Who Supports It
Supported by Democrats and progressive groups following the 2000 and 2016 elections in which the popular vote winner did not win the Electoral College. Opposed by most Republicans and by states that benefit from the current system's weightings.
Following debates over court-packing, proposals have been introduced to constitutionally fix the number of Supreme Court justices at nine, preventing any future Congress or president from expanding the Court. The number nine is set by statute rather than the Constitution, meaning Congress could change it by simple majority vote. A constitutional amendment would make nine justices permanent. The House voted on H.J.Res. 1 on September 2, 2026; it received 212 votes to 206, short of the two-thirds needed, so it failed.
Congress changed the size of the Court several times in its first eighty years, with as few as six seats and as many as ten, before the Judiciary Act of 1869 set the number at nine. President Franklin Roosevelt's 1937 plan to add up to six justices failed in Congress. The Supreme Court page covers the Court's structure.
Key Obstacle
Support and opposition tend to track current political dynamics. Whichever party is currently out of power on the Court tends to favor court reform, while the party with a majority tends to prefer the status quo. No single approach to Supreme Court structure commands a two-thirds majority in both chambers.
Who Supports It
Supported by some Republicans who oppose court-packing proposals. Some Democrats who favor expanding the Court oppose this amendment. Nonpartisan judicial reform groups have called for structural changes including term limits for justices rather than a fixed number.
H.J.Res. 29, introduced by Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) in January 2025, proposes to replace the 22nd Amendment's two-term limit with a three-term limit, with the condition that no person who served two consecutive terms may run for a third. As structured, President Trump, whose two terms were not consecutive, could run for a third term, while former Presidents Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, who all served two consecutive terms, would be disqualified from a third.
The two-term limit itself is relatively recent. The Twenty-second Amendment was ratified on February 27, 1951, after Franklin Roosevelt won four presidential elections, breaking the two-term tradition set by George Washington. See the President and amendments pages.
Key Obstacle
The amendment would require two-thirds of Congress to vote for a proposal that could be seen as tailored for a specific individual. It faces significant structural and political obstacles.
Who Supports It
Introduced by a small number of House Republicans in the 119th Congress. Has not attracted significant bipartisan support.
Following Citizens United v. FEC (2010), which held that the First Amendment prohibits the government from restricting corporate and union political spending, proposals have been introduced to amend the Constitution to allow Congress and states to regulate campaign finance, including limits on political spending by corporations, unions, and other entities. The amendment would reverse Citizens United and the principle, dating to Buckley v. Valeo (1976), that political spending is a form of protected speech.
Citizens United was decided 5-4 on January 21, 2010. In September 2014, a Senate proposal to amend the Constitution to allow campaign spending limits won a 54-42 majority but fell short of the 60 votes needed to advance. The campaign finance page covers the current rules.
Key Obstacle
Passing any campaign finance amendment requires a two-thirds supermajority in both chambers of Congress, including from many members who benefit from the current system of campaign finance. The amendment faces strong opposition from the business community and from those who view campaign spending as constitutionally protected free speech.
Who Supports It
Supported by Wolf-PAC, which is pursuing the Article V convention route, and by progressive groups including Common Cause and Public Citizen. Wolf-PAC's resolution has passed in five state legislatures, three of which later rescinded it.
The Article V Convention Route
A path to amending the Constitution that has never been used in American history
Article V of the Constitution provides a second path to proposing constitutional amendments: if two-thirds of state legislatures (34 of 50) apply to Congress to call a convention for proposing amendments, Congress must call such a convention. Any amendments proposed by the convention would still need ratification by three-fourths of states to take effect.
This route was designed precisely to allow states to bypass Congress when Congress is unwilling to propose amendments that limit its own power. The Framers included it because they recognized that a Congress wanting to entrench its own authority might refuse to propose necessary reforms.
Despite the logic of the mechanism, no Article V convention has ever been called. The primary reason is the fear of a runaway convention: a convention that, once convened, might propose amendments far beyond the limited scope the states intended when they applied.
George Mason insisted on this route. On September 15, 1787, he warned the Philadelphia convention that if Congress alone could propose amendments, no amendment limiting its own power would ever be offered, and the delegates added the convention option that day. The framers page profiles Mason.
Current State of Play
34 of 50
States needed to call a convention
20 states (as of Jan 2026)
Convention of States applications passed
5 states (3 later rescinded)
Wolf-PAC applications passed
Convention of States Action, launched in 2013 by Mark Meckler and Michael Farris, is the largest active Article V campaign. Its resolution calls for a convention limited to proposing amendments that impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit the power and jurisdiction of the federal government, and limit the terms of office for its officials and members of Congress. As of January 2026, the resolution has passed in 20 state legislatures. It needs 34 to call a convention.
Article V provides two ways to propose amendments: by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, or by a convention that Congress must call when two-thirds of the state legislatures, now 34, apply for one. Either way, three-fourths of the states, now 38, must ratify. The second route has never been used. The text of Article V is on the full Constitution page.
Earlier campaigns came close. A push in the 1960s to overturn the Supreme Court's one-person, one-vote rulings drew applications from 33 states, one short, and a balanced budget convention drive reached 32 states by the early 1980s.
Much of the modern focus remains fiscal. The federal budget page explains the spending and deficits these campaigns aim to restrain.
Wolf-PAC is pursuing an Article V convention specifically to propose an amendment to overturn Citizens United v. FEC and address campaign finance. Their resolution has passed in five state legislatures: Vermont, California, Illinois, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. New Jersey (2021), Illinois (2022), and California (2025) have since rescinded all of their convention applications. They need 34 states to call a convention.
Wolf-PAC was founded in 2011 by media commentator Cenk Uygur, and Vermont became the first state to pass its resolution, in 2014.
The campaign responds to Citizens United v. FEC (2010), which held that the First Amendment bars limits on independent political spending by corporations and unions. The campaign finance page explains how that ruling reshaped elections.
The movement has faced headwinds as well. In recent years several states, including Delaware, Maryland, Nevada, and New Mexico, have rescinded older Article V applications of various kinds, citing concern about how a convention could be controlled.
The biggest concern about an Article V convention is that once convened, delegates could propose amendments well beyond the scope of the original application. There is no clear constitutional mechanism to limit what a convention may propose. In theory, a convention called to address fiscal responsibility could propose amendments on any topic whatsoever. Organizations from across the political spectrum, including the John Birch Society on the right, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities on the left, and the Eagle Forum, have opposed Article V conventions specifically because of this risk.
Critics point to the only precedent: the Philadelphia convention of 1787 was called to revise the Articles of Confederation and instead wrote an entirely new Constitution. The framers page tells that story.
Supporters answer that any amendment a convention proposes would still need ratification by 38 states, a safeguard the 1787 convention did not face under the Articles. Several states have also passed laws that bind their own delegates to the subject in the state's application and make exceeding it a crime or grounds for recall.
Prominent jurists have taken both sides. Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote in 1988 that there was no effective way to limit a convention's agenda. Antonin Scalia, speaking as a law professor in 1979, favored using the convention route to make the Constitution easier to amend, but as a justice in 2014 he said he would not want a constitutional convention.
A separate technical problem is how to count state applications. Different states have applied for conventions on different subjects and in different time periods. Some applications are decades old and may have been withdrawn or superseded. Congress has never formally counted applications or established clear rules for determining when the 34-state threshold has been reached. Some argue that aggregating applications across different subjects and time periods to reach 34 is improper; others argue any plenary application counts regardless of subject or age.
State applications are sent to Congress, and since 2015 the rules of the House of Representatives have required the Clerk to make them public, but no official tally determines when 34 has been reached.
The Supreme Court has never decided these questions. Its reasoning in Coleman v. Miller (1939), which treated some ratification disputes as political questions, suggests Congress itself would decide whether the threshold had been met.
Even if a convention were called, open questions would remain, including how delegates are chosen and how many votes each state would get. The ratified amendments page shows how rarely the Constitution has been changed by any route.
Amendments That Failed to Be Ratified
Six amendments were approved by Congress and sent to the states but never ratified by the required number. Their stories reveal what Americans have debated adding to the Constitution.
What It Would Have Done
Would have established a formula tying House size to population, in three steps: one representative per 30,000 people until the House reached 100 members, then one per 40,000 until it reached 200, and after that no more than one per 50,000. The amendment was proposed alongside the Bill of Rights but failed to get enough state ratifications at the time.
Why It Failed
Ten states had ratified by the end of 1791, one short of the eleven of fourteen then required. Interest faded as Congress grew through regular legislation. The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 fixed the House size at 435, effectively resolving the underlying concern. Because the amendment has no deadline, it is technically still open.
Kentucky became the eleventh state to ratify in 1792, but Kentucky's own admission to the Union that year raised the threshold to twelve of fifteen states, so the amendment again fell one short.
The House grew from 65 members in the First Congress to 435 after the 1910 census, the size fixed by law in 1929. The census and apportionment page explains how seats are divided today.
What It Would Have Done
Would have stripped U.S. citizenship from any American citizen who accepted a title of nobility from a foreign government without congressional approval, expanding on the Constitution's existing prohibition on federal and state governments granting titles.
Why It Failed
Proposed during a period of European conflicts when American citizens accepting titles from Napoleon's allies was a real concern. Twelve states ratified it, but it never reached the required threshold. Some 19th-century publications mistakenly listed it as a ratified amendment, and conspiracy theories persist today claiming it was secretly ratified and suppressed.
It passed Congress easily in 1810, by 19-5 in the Senate and 87-3 in the House, and would have added a citizenship penalty to the Emoluments Clause already in Article I.
Modern versions of the conspiracy theory claim that lawyers, who sometimes use the title esquire, are barred from holding office. Courts have uniformly rejected these arguments, noting the amendment was never ratified.
What It Would Have Done
Would have made it permanently unconstitutional for Congress to abolish or interfere with the domestic institutions of the states, specifically intended to protect slavery from federal interference in a last attempt to prevent Southern secession.
Why It Failed
Proposed in the final days before the Civil War, it was signed by President Buchanan, a symbolic step since presidents play no formal role in amendments (Lincoln later signed the 13th Amendment resolution the same way). Lincoln did not oppose it, viewing it as consistent with his position that the federal government had no power to abolish slavery in states where it existed. The outbreak of war made it moot, and the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery was ratified four years later.
Congress approved it in the final days of the Buchanan administration, 133-65 in the House and 24-12 in the Senate. Ohio later rescinded its ratification in 1864, and Maryland in 2014.
Its failure matters for how the Civil War ended: rather than guaranteeing slavery, the country abolished it through the Thirteenth Amendment in December 1865. The Civil War page covers that transformation.
What It Would Have Done
Would have granted Congress the power to limit, regulate, and prohibit labor by persons under 18 years of age, responding to Supreme Court decisions striking down federal child labor laws as beyond Congress's commerce power.
Why It Failed
Twenty-eight states ratified, making it the closest unratified no-deadline amendment to completion. The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 achieved the policy goal through a different constitutional theory after the Court's New Deal-era shift in commerce clause interpretation. With the underlying goal achieved by statute, ratification pressure faded.
The decisions that prompted it were Hammer v. Dagenhart (1918) and Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co. (1922), which struck down federal child labor laws under the commerce and taxing powers.
In United States v. Darby (1941), the Court unanimously upheld the Fair Labor Standards Act and overruled Hammer. The Department of Labor enforces the law's child labor rules today.
What It Would Have Done
Would guarantee that equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
Why It Failed
See the Pending Amendments tab for the full, current status. Briefly: 35 states ratified by the 1982 deadline; three more ratified between 2017 and 2020; five states attempted to rescind earlier ratifications. The amendment's legal status is actively contested in courts and Congress as of November 2026.
The idea was not new in 1972: suffragist Alice Paul first had an equal rights amendment introduced in Congress in 1923, three years after women won the vote. The voting rights page covers the suffrage movement.
Organized opposition, led by activist Phyllis Schlafly's STOP ERA campaign starting in 1972, argued the amendment could subject women to the military draft and eliminate legal protections for homemakers, and helped halt ratifications after the mid-1970s.
What It Would Have Done
Would have repealed the 23rd Amendment and treated the District of Columbia as a state for purposes of congressional representation, giving D.C. full voting representation in the House and two senators.
Why It Failed
Only 16 of the required 38 states ratified it before the August 1985 deadline. Opposition came partly from smaller states who did not want to dilute their representation, and partly from Republicans who anticipated D.C. would reliably send Democratic senators and representatives. The question of D.C. statehood and representation has since been pursued through legislation rather than constitutional amendment.
The Twenty-third Amendment, ratified in 1961, already gave the District three votes in the Electoral College, but no voting members of Congress.
More recently, the House passed D.C. statehood bills in June 2020 and April 2021, the second by 216-208, but the Senate did not take them up. The House of Representatives page explains the District's nonvoting delegate.