AP® United States Government and Politics · Unit 1 · Topic 1.5
The Article V Amendment Process
Article V lays out how the Constitution gets changed: an amendment must be proposed by a two-thirds vote in Congress (or a convention) and ratified by three-fourths of the states. The bar is deliberately high, which is why only 27 amendments have ever made it.
Article V sets up a two-stage process: proposal, then ratification. There are two ways to propose. Congress can propose an amendment with a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate, which is the route every one of the 27 amendments has taken. Or two-thirds of state legislatures (34 of 50) can call a national convention to propose amendments, a route that has never actually succeeded. There are also two ways to ratify: three-fourths of state legislatures (38 of 50) approve it, or three-fourths of state ratifying conventions approve it. Congress picks which ratification method applies when it proposes the amendment.
The process is hard on purpose. The founders wanted the Constitution stable, not something a temporary majority could rewrite on a whim. Requiring supermajorities at both the federal and state level forces broad, lasting consensus across a huge and diverse country, which is exactly why change is rare and slow.
Notice who is missing from this process entirely: the president. Article V amendments never go to the president for a signature or veto, unlike ordinary legislation. That is a direct contrast to how normal lawmaking works, and it is the clearest way to see that amending the Constitution is treated as a fundamentally different, higher kind of lawmaking than passing a statute.
Key terms
- Article V
- The section of the Constitution that defines the only legal process for proposing and ratifying amendments.
- Proposal
- The first stage of amending, done by a two-thirds vote in both chambers of Congress or by a national convention called by two-thirds of states.
- Ratification
- The second stage of amending, requiring approval from three-fourths of state legislatures or state conventions, 38 of 50 states.
- Supermajority
- A vote threshold higher than a simple majority, such as two-thirds or three-fourths, required at each stage of Article V.
Watch it explained
- How it worksWalk me through all four routes an amendment can take from proposal to ratification.
- Worked exampleFind how many senators, representatives, and states an amendment needs at each stage.
- Common mistakeWhy isn't the president's signature required to add an amendment to the Constitution?
- Going furtherWhat happens to a proposed amendment that reaches 35 state ratifications and then stalls?
Check yourself
End of topic.