Law Commons^™

State Legislative Ratification Of Federal Constitutional Amendments: An Overview, Philip L. Martin

University of Richmond Law Review

Article V of the United States Constitution sets out the amend- ment procedure, which consists of two stages, proposal and ratification. Each stage, in turn, offers two alternative procedures which can be interchanged to provide four means of effecting constitutional alteration. An amendment may be proposed either by a two-thirds vote of each house of Congress or by a national convention assembled upon proper application by the legislatures of two-thirds of the states; and an amendment may be ratified, as Congress decides, either by three-fourths of the state legislatures or by conventions in three-fourths of the states. To date, the …