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The vote of each state (to either ratify or reject a proposed amendment) carries equal weight, regardless of a state's population or length of time in the Union. Article Five is silent regarding deadlines for the ratification of proposed amendments, but most amendments proposed since 1917 have included a deadline for ratification.
A constitutional amendment (or constitutional alteration) is a modification of the constitution of a polity, organization or other type of entity. Amendments are often interwoven into the relevant sections of an existing constitution, directly altering the text.
Several constitutional amendments (the Fifteenth, Nineteenth, and Twenty-sixth specifically) require that voting rights of U.S. citizens cannot be abridged on account of race, color, previous condition of servitude, sex, or age (18 and older); the constitution as originally written did not establish any such rights during 1787–1870, except ...
An initiated constitutional amendment is an amendment to a state's constitution that results from petitioning by a state's citizens. By utilizing this initiative process, citizens can propose and vote on constitutional amendments directly, without need of legislative referral. When a sufficient number of citizens have signed a petition ...
To require a two-thirds vote, for example, to take any action would be to give to any number more than one-third of the members the power to defeat the action and amount to a delegation of the powers of the body to a minority." [52] Some states require a supermajority for passage of a constitutional amendment or statutory initiative. [53]
Since 1999, only about 20 proposed amendments have received a vote by either the full House or Senate. The last time a proposal gained the necessary two-thirds support in both the House and the Senate for submission to the states was the District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment in 1978. Only 16 states had ratified it when the seven-year ...
Florida voters passed the state’s medical marijuana marketplace with 71% of the vote in 2016, but state officials have expressed their opposition to the proposed amendment. Here’s more on the ...
A convention to propose amendments to the United States Constitution, also referred to as an Article V Convention, state convention, [1] or amendatory convention is one of two methods authorized by Article Five of the United States Constitution whereby amendments to the United States Constitution may be proposed: on the Application of two thirds of the State legislatures (that is, 34 of the 50 ...