Proposals to Amend the U.S. Constitution: Fact Sheet (CRS Report for Congress)
| Release Date |
Revised Dec. 17, 2024 |
| Report Number |
R47959 |
| Report Type |
Report |
| Authors |
Ben Leubsdorf |
| Source Agency |
Congressional Research Service |
| Older Revisions |
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Summary:
This report provides brief background information and resources for locating historical, recent,
and current proposed and unratified amendments to the Constitution of the United States. It does
not focus on successful amendments to the Constitution. It is also not intended to provide
detailed legal or policy analysis about amending the Constitution.
Article V sets out two procedures for amending the Constitution. First, Congress may propose amendments by two-thirds
majorities in both the House and Senate. Second, two-thirds of the state legislatures may call a convention for proposing
amendments, though this has not happened to date. Under either procedure, three-fourths of the states must ratify an
amendment for it to become part of the Constitution.
Some Members of Congress and others have proposed thousands of amendments since 1787. Frequent topics for proposed
amendments introduced in Congress over the past 50 years include abortion, the electoral college, federal budget, and
electoral term limits.
The states ratified a total of 27 amendments between 1791 and 1992. Congress has endorsed six amendments that were not
ratified by the necessary number of states. These unratified amendments address the size of the U.S. House (1789), foreign
titles of nobility (1810), slavery (1861), child labor (1924), equal rights for women (1972), and representation for the District
of Columbia (1978).
Congress.gov contains bill and resolution texts for proposed amendments from the 103rd Congress (1993-1994) to the
present, and summaries back to the 93rd Congress (1973-1974). Suggested search parameters for returning a comprehensive
list back to 1973 are available on the “Action Search Scope Notes” help page, under “Other Searches.”
In addition, two online databases contain large collections of proposed constitutional amendments going back to the 1780s:
the Amending America database and the Amendments Project database. The former was created by the National Archives and
Records Administration (NARA). The latter, created by researchers at Harvard University, includes proposals not introduced
in Congress, as well as the full text of proposed amendments.
