" Once approved by Congress, the joint resolution proposing a constitutional amendment does not require presidential approval before it goes out to the states. While Article I Section 7 provides that all federal legislation must, before becoming Law, be presented to the president for his or her signature or veto, Article V provides no such requirement for constitutional amendments approved by Congress or by a federal convention. Thus, the president has no official function in the process.[b] In Hollingsworth v. Virginia (1798), the Supreme Court affirmed that it is not necessary to place constitutional amendments before the president for approval or veto.[10]"
If Democrats win control of the House and Senate what amendments would most likely be ratified by 38 states? We could have an amendment to increase the federal minimum wage and tie it to the cost of living or quality healthcare as a basic human right or ban political free speech protections for non-human legal entities or ban broad immunity for the president and allow the pardon power of the president to be blocked by The Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader.
What hypothetical amendments would have the most support?
You need to look at it a bit differently: it’s not that 38 states are needed to approve amendments, but rather that only 13 states are needed to block them. And Republicans have been very effective at electing politicians at the state level. Republicans have total control of 28 State Legislatures, and also hold the Governor’s seat in 23 of them.
So, any amendment that manages to get through Congress (and the filibuster) will have to be approved by a bunch of these State Republicans. So pretty much any policy that that can be considered liberal will be DOA.
In fact, Democrats have more to worry about in the other direction. They only hold 18 State Legislatures, holding the Governor’s seat in 16 of them. That is perilously close to the threshold of not being able to block amendments. If Democrats lose just a few more of those safe states, the the next time Republicans hold majorities in the House and Senate, they may be able to force amendments through that the blue states don’t like.
(Source: https://www.ncsl.org/about-state-legislatures/state-partisan-composition)
Seems like the “state-ratifying conventions” route is the only thing that has a chance of working, and that’s ignoring that the Constitution doesn’t regulate them.
Although, seeing as an amendment need 2/3rds of each chamber of Congress to pass, regardless of sending it to the legislatures or conventions (not for the convention to propose amendments), could Congress use that veto-proof majority to pass a law regulating conventions?
Whatever the idea, pretty sure this ends up in the Supreme Court regardless?
… is it weird that I’ve been thinking about this for the last decade? I’m not even American.
There are no rules at all to a constitutional convention, any rules are set by the delegates themselves. The last time we had one, they were charged with revising the Articles of Confederation, and decided to rip the whole thing up and write the Constitution. And this time, they have an official ruling that “money is speech”, which will guarantee a ton of corporate cash flowing in to influence it.
Conservatives here have been looking to the convention process as a way to rip up parts of the Constitution they don’t like. They can rewrite anything they want, and revoke rights we’ve had for hundreds of years. Yes, they still need 38 states to adopt it in the end, but as I covered above, they have complete control of many of the states they need to accomplish this.
And if this happens, what happens to the 12 Liberal states who do not go along with these changes? They will likely just leave, and make their own new country, with the original principles intact.
At least the amendment process only changes one thing at a time. A convention will blow it all up, and likely result in the country splitting in two. The only bright spot may be that it might be done without resorting to a civil war first.
How many state legislatures will vote no against a higher federal minimum wage? How many state legislatures will vote no against banning corporate political free speech?
https://www.ncsl.org/labor-and-employment/state-minimum-wages
34 states have set wages above the Federal minimum, which means that 16 feel the Federal minimum is not too low.
A ton. Where have you been the last 20 years?