The Constitution · how it works

How the Constitution is amended

The only power that outranks the Supreme Court, and the hardest one to use: two-thirds of Congress to propose, three-quarters of the states to ratify, and no role for the President at all.

amendments ratified since 1789

11,000+

proposed in Congress, a success rate near 0.2%

2/3 + 3/4

of Congress to propose, of states to ratify

203 years

the Twenty-Seventh's wait between proposal and ratification

Article VHow the Constitution is changed: proposal by two-thirds of both chambers or by a convention called by two-thirds of the states, then ratification by three-fourths of the states.Read the full definition (opens a new tab) is one paragraph, and it has produced exactly 27 amendments from more than 11,000 attempts. That ratio is the design: the framers wanted a Constitution that could change, but only when consensus reached far beyond a passing majority. Every step below has been exercised; one path never has.

Two-thirds of both chambers

Path A: Congress proposes

Every ratificationFinal approval that gives a measure legal force: states ratify constitutional amendments (3/4 required); the Senate consents to treaties (2/3).Read the full definition (opens a new tab) amendment has started here: a joint resolutionA measure (H.J.Res. or S.J.Res.) that travels the same path as a bill and has the same force of law. Also the only vehicle for proposing a constitutional amendment.Read the full definition (opens a new tab) passing the House and Senate by supermajorityAny threshold above half: three-fifths for Senate cloture, two-thirds to override a veto or convict on impeachment, three-fourths of states to ratify an amendment.Read the full definition (opens a new tab) supermajorities. The President is bypassed entirely, no signature, no veto (Hollingsworth v. Virginia, 1798, settled it), because the proposal speaks for Congress and the states, not the executive.

Source: National Archives, Constitutional Amendment Process

Two-thirds of state legislatures (34 of 50)

Path B: the states demand a convention

On the application of two-thirds of the states, Congress 'shall call' a convention for proposing amendments. It has never happened, and its open questions are famous: could a convention be limited to one topic, or could it propose anything? Campaigns for a balanced-budget convention have come within a handful of states, and the pressure itself has moved Congress before, the Seventeenth AmendmentThe 1913 amendment providing for direct popular election of senators, who had previously been chosen by state legislatures.Read the full definition (opens a new tab) was proposed partly to head off a convention.

Never usedAll 27 amendments took Path A. The convention remains a loaded, untested instrument.

Congress

Congress picks the ratification mode

The proposing resolution chooses how states ratify: by their legislatures (26 amendments) or by state conventions elected for the purpose, used once, for the Twenty-First (Prohibition's repealCancelling an existing law. It takes the same process the law took: passage by both chambers and the President's signature, or an override.Read the full definition (opens a new tab)), when Congress doubted sitting legislatures would vote to repeal. Modern proposals also typically attach a seven-year ratification deadline.

Deadlines have teeth and lawsuits: the Equal Rights Amendment cleared chamberOne of the two houses of a legislature. Congress has two: the House of Representatives and the Senate. A bill must pass both, in identical text.Read the full definition (opens a new tab) in 1972 and 38 states by 2020, but its lapsed deadline leaves its status contested to this day.

Three-quarters of the states (38 of 50)

The states ratify, or don't

Each state votes under its own procedures, and the arithmetic is brutal by design: thirteen states, however small, can block an amendment supported everywhere else. Most successful amendments cross the line within a few years of proposal.

38 states ratifyThe amendment is part of the Constitution the moment the last needed state acts.

Support stallsSix proposed amendments passed Congress and died in the states, including the ERA (contested) and D.C. voting representation.

The long gameNo deadline, no expiration: the Twenty-Seventh, proposed 1789, ratified 1992, when a university student's campaign revived it.

Source: National Archives, The Constitutional Amendment Process

The Archivist of the United States

Certification, and it is done

The Archivist certifies that the required ratifications arrived, a ministerial act; the amendment was already law upon the final state's ratification. From that moment it outranks every statuteA law passed by a legislature and signed into effect. Distinct from a regulation, which an agency writes, and from a court decision, which interprets both.Read the full definition (opens a new tab), every executive orderA written, numbered presidential directive to the executive branch, published in the Federal Register. It has legal force only as far as the Constitution or a statute backs it.Read the full definition (opens a new tab), and every court decision built on the text it changed.

That is the amendment power's real weight: it is the constitutional answer to the Supreme CourtThe only court the Constitution itself creates. Nine Justices, life tenure, and near-total control over which cases they hear.Read the full definition (opens a new tab). The Eleventh, Fourteenth, Sixteenth, and Twenty-Sixth each overturned a specific Court ruling.

Source: National Archives, America's Founding Documents

Sources for this walkthrough

Stage-specific sources are cited on their stages above.

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This is a plain-language walkthrough for civic education, not legal advice. Procedure has exceptions this page simplifies; the official sources above control.