How can changes be made to the constitution

The Twenty-third Amendment, ratified in , gave the right to vote in Presidential elections to residents of the District of Columbia, where African Americans constituted a majority of the population. As the seat of the federal government, the district is not a state and has no senators, only a nonvoting delegate to the U. House of Representatives. The Twenty-fourth Amendment, ratified in , abolished the poll taxes that some states had required citizens to pay in order to vote.

Although poll taxes worked against poor people in general, they fell especially hard on African Americans in the South. The shock of President John F. Next in line of succession for the Presidency came the Speaker of the House and the president pro tempore of the Senate, both elderly men.

People also wondered what might have occurred had President Kennedy been seriously wounded rather than killed. The Twenty-fifth Amendment, ratified in , set up mechanisms to enable the Vice President to assume the Presidency if the President was incapable of functioning in office. When the Vice Presidency fell vacant, the President could nominate a replacement, with the consent of the Senate and House.

The Vietnam War prompted ratification of the Twenty-sixth Amendment in Reformers pointed out that young men were subject to the military draft at the age of eighteen, and should, therefore, be able to vote for the leaders who were sending them into combat. A few states already allowed voters younger than twenty-one. The Twenty-sixth Amendment lowered the voting age to eighteen nationwide.

However, younger Americans have often failed to take advantage of this right. It struck down school desegregation, school-sponsored prayer, and state legislatures that gave more seats to sparsely populated rural areas than to heavily populated cities.

In none of these efforts, however, could they muster sufficient support to attain the two-thirds votes needed in Congress for an amendment. Eisenhower had little idea of what a powerful champion of change Warren would become. The new chief justice took over leadership of a Court sharply divided between those who believed in judicial restraint and judicial activism.

Warren proved adept at forging new majorities among the justices, and he unexpectedly became an advocate of individual rights and liberties. He convinced the other justices to join in a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education , which declared school segregation unconstitutional. Warren was also proud of his leadership in striking down the old system of apportionment in state legislatures that gave more representation to sparsely populated rural districts than to large cities.

Carr , the Court ruled that all legislative districts must be equal in population. The Warren Court never shied from controversy. In Engel v. Vitale , it struck down school-sponsored prayer. In Gideon v. Wainwright it ruled that a poor defendant must be provided with a lawyer. In Miranda v. Arizona it declared that criminal suspects must be informed of their constitutional rights.

In , Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment, prohibiting discrimination on account of gender. Congress then extended the deadline for ratifying the ERA, but the amendment again failed to win enough support from state legislatures. Opponents argued that the amendment was unnecessary because federal laws already protected equal rights for women.

Another failed amendment proposed in the s would have made the District of Columbia a state, giving it two senators and at least one representative. Although the district had a population comparable to that of several states, it was geographically tiny by comparison to the smallest state. Statehood raised questions about federal control of governmental areas within the district. Republicans also recognized that their party would have little chance of winning any of the congressional seats from the heavily Democratic District of Columbia.

Only sixteen states had ratified the amendment when its time limit expired in What became the Twenty-seventh Amendment in stipulated that raises in congressional salaries would not go into effect until after the next election, giving the voters a chance to register their disapproval. Gregory Watson, a student at the University of Texas, had started the campaign to encourage the states to approve this long-forgotten amendment, for which Congress had set no time limit for ratification.

Its cause was taken up by radio talk shows that appealed to a growing public disaffection with government. The states finally ratified the amendment more than two hundred years after Congress had passed it. Supreme Court. Raised on an Arizona ranch, she had graduated third in her class at Stanford Law School in , but, as she recalled in her commencement address at Stanford University on June 13, , her academic brilliance did not lead directly to a post in private practice.

I was unable to obtain employment in a private law firm. I did receive one contingent offer of employment—as a legal secretary. But the gender walls that blocked me out of the private sector were more easily hurdled in the public sector, and I first found employment as a deputy county attorney of San Mateo County, California. Congress may set a time limit for state action. Legislatures must return specific materials to show proof of ratification. Step 5. When the requisite number of states ratify a proposed amendment, the archivist of the United States proclaims it as a new amendment to the U.

Actual certification is published immediately in the Federal Register and eventually in the United States Statutes-at-Large. State legislatures often call upon Congress to propose constitutional amendments. While these calls may bring some political pressure to bear, Congress is under no constitutional obligation to respond.

The U. Constitution does not contain a provision requiring Congress to submit a proposed amendment upon request by some requisite number of states. In addition to constitutional amendments proposed by Congress, states have the option of petitioning Congress to call a constitutional convention.

Legislatures in two-thirds of states must agree, however. In August the Government appointed a royal commission to inquire into and report upon the powers of the Commonwealth under the Constitution and the working of the Constitution since Federation.

The report was presented to Parliament in November [] but did not bring any positive results. They made significant progress and approved a draft bill transferring certain State powers, including control of labour, marketing, companies, monopolies and prices, from the States to the Commonwealth Government. However, only two of the State Parliaments were prepared to approve the bill.

The next major review of the Constitution was conducted by a joint select committee of the Parliament, first appointed in Recommendations of the committee which were submitted some years later to the people at referendum were:. In the Victorian Parliament initiated a proposal to convene an Australian Constitutional Convention. Following agreement by the States to the proposal and the inclusion of the Commonwealth in the proposed convention, the first meeting took place at Sydney in and was followed by further meetings of the convention at Melbourne , Hobart and Perth The convention agreed to a number of proposals for the alteration of the Constitution, some of which were submitted to the people at the referendums of The referendums on Simultaneous Elections, Referendums, and the Retirement of Judges were the subject of resolutions of the convention at meetings held in Melbourne and Hobart.

In the Commonwealth Government announced the establishment of a Constitutional Commission to report on the revision of the Constitution. It consisted of five members a sixth resigning upon appointment to the High Court and it operated by means of five advisory committees, covering the Australian judicial system, the distribution of powers, executive government, individual and democratic rights, and trade and national economic management.

A series of background papers was published by the commission and papers and reports were prepared by the advisory committees. In the Constitutional Centenary Foundation was established with the purposes of encouraging education and promoting public discussion, understanding and review of the Australian constitutional system in the decade leading to the centenary of the Constitution.

In Prime Minister Keating established the Republic Advisory Committee with the terms of reference of producing an options paper describing the minimum constitutional changes necessary to achieve a republic, while maintaining the effect of existing conventions and principles of government. In February the Commonwealth Government convened a Constitutional Convention to consider whether Australia should become a republic and models for choosing a head of state.

Delegates —half elected, half appointed by the Government met for two weeks in Canberra in Old Parliament House. When the OFR verifies that it has received the required number of authenticated ratification documents, it drafts a formal proclamation for the Archivist to certify that the amendment is valid and has become part of the Constitution. This certification is published in the Federal Register and U. Statutes at Large and serves as official notice to the Congress and to the Nation that the amendment process has been completed.

In a few instances, States have sent official documents to NARA to record the rejection of an amendment or the rescission of a prior ratification. The Archivist does not make any substantive determinations as to the validity of State ratification actions, but it has been established that the Archivist's certification of the facial legal sufficiency of ratification documents is final and conclusive. In recent history, the signing of the certification has become a ceremonial function attended by various dignitaries, which may include the President.