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Title: Amendments Work

Original CoS Document (slug): [[https://conventionofstates.com/amendments-work-1|amendments-work-1]]

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Created: 2023-03-26 17:48:59

Updated: 2023-04-10 03:00:00

Published: 2023-04-03 00:00:00

Converted: 2025-04-14T21:23:50.425930592


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What is with the scare tactics about amending the Constitution?

Amendments are baked into the cake. There are 27 amendments to the Constitution and Article V gives us the ability to add more if needed.

Article V is like our software update feature that is revocable if we mess up. It is the gift given to either Congress or the sovereign states (We the People) to propose fixes for the glitches that are bound to occur over hundreds of years.  

The process remains the only way for the states to restrain federal overreach by any of the three branches.\\
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First, let us celebrate that the Constitution, along with – and I daresay BECAUSE of - the first ten amendments (proposed by the first Congress and ratified two years later), has lasted nearly 235 years! It was pretty good right out of the box (once amended by the Bill of Rights). So good that for the next 75 years, only two amendments were proposed, and both were to fix glitches: one to “correct” a bad Supreme Court decision; and one to clean up a sticky unanticipated political flaw insuring that political enemies would almost certainly share the executive branch as President and Vice President.

After that, smooth sailing ensued for over 60 years. The document – with its amendments – worked pretty well. Not that there was no argument about interpretation. A five-year bitter war resulted from different interpretations of the document, resulting in the next three amendments, which changed our Republic for the better, most would argue. Amendments work.\\
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Forty-Three years passed with NO changes proposed. Then the country fell under the spell of the “Progressive Era” and the roller coaster started. Article V movements for progressive issues like the direct election of U.S. Senators, temperance, and a graduated income tax, forced Congress to act rather than have the people decide in state-held conventions what amendments should look like.

Three of the four resulting amendments over the next seven years are indeed examples of how we can create problems by trying to fix them. The good news is that just as we ratified the 18th Amendment (prohibition) the system allowed us to repeal that amendment (21st) when it became unmanageable. We can make mistakes, and we can change our minds!\\
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Another 30 years lapsed with only one new amendment to fix a political glitch – term limits for the President (executive). We do not want a King in this Republic. The system worked again.\\
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The next decade saw no new changes proposed, but a rash of software updates followed in the 60s, seeing amendments ratified involving DC representation in Congress, voting rights fixes and the 25th Amendment regarding Presidential succession. \\
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That’s all folks – NOTHING proposed by Congress in the last 50+ years! Two-thirds of Congress cannot agree on when to go to lunch. Amendments are a dead letter in Congress.\\
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Then how do we get the software updates we need to keep the system from crashing? How do we undo terrible Supreme Court precedents which become the “Law of the Land?"

How do we reaffirm federalism and wrench power back from the executive branch bureaucracy? How do we assure that Congress makes laws, NOT the executive or the courts? How can we make Congress responsive to the people via term limits?

Just as in the sports car motorhead world, Miata is “the answer” to all questions; in government, an Article V convention is the answer to all questions.\\
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Amendments work. Now is the time to propose a few to maintain America's future.