It’s always been hard to amend the U.S. Constitution. But, in the past half century, it’s become much harder—so hard that people barely bother trying anymore. What impact does this have on our democracy?
has collected and analyzed every national constitution ever enacted. “Constitutions are designed to stabilize and facilitate politics,” the project’s founders write. “But, there is certainly the possibility that constitutions can outlive their utility and create pathologies in the political process that distort democracy.” Could that be happening in the United States?
This era of contentment appears to have come to an end. In 2022, forty-one per cent of respondents said that the Constitution should be more frequently reviewed and amended, and another seven per cent that it should be entirely rewritten and replaced. Those are the over-all numbers. But the results are strikingly polarized. Seventy-two per cent of Republicans think that the Constitution is basically fine as is; seventy-two per cent of Democrats disagree.
In this time line, amendment proposals are grouped by congressional session and ordered by the year they were introduced as bills.