A Supreme Court decision Coleman v. Miller reaffirmed the power of Congress to fix a reasonable time period for ratification but also determined that Congress has the power to promulgate an amendment after the final state constituting a three-fourths majority ratifies. In Coleman , the Court held that Congress, upon receiving notification of ratification by three-fourths of the states, may determine whether the amendment is valid because it has been ratified in a reasonable period of time, or whether "the amendment has lost its vitality through lapse of time.
It is important to note that Congressional promulgation is not a necessary feature of ratification under Article V. In the history of the amendment process Congress has promulgated only two amendments, the 14th and the 27th, following the final state ratification.
In addition, the requirement for ratification within a "sufficiently contemporaneous" time frame and the chronological definition of "contemporaneous" are now open to question in light of acceptance of the Madison Amendment. The first time limit ever imposed on the ratification period of a constitutional amendment was in the text of the 18th Amendment Prohibition in , and the limit of seven years was chosen by Congress without extensive discussion.
The 19th Amendment Woman Suffrage was sent to the states in with no time limit, as was a proposed Child Labor Amendment in Seven-year time limits were placed in the text of the 20th, 21st, and 22nd Amendments, but Congress shifted the seven-year limit out of the text and into the proposing clause of the 23rd, 24th, 25th, and 26th Amendments.
The most recent amendment to the Constitution, the 27th Amendment, had no deadline attached because it was passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification in After languishing for two centuries without sufficient state ratifications, action on it resumed in the s, and it was added to the Constitution in Despite arguments by proponents that the Equal Rights Amendment should go to the states without a time limit in the tradition of the 19th Amendment, the ERA passed Congress in with a seven-year time limit in its proposing clause.
If the time limit had been placed in the text of the amendment itself, that restriction would not be subject to alteration by Congress after any state legislature had ratified. However, the ERA language ratified by 35 states between and did not contain a time limit for ratification. By transferring time limits from the text of an amendment to the proposing clause, Congress retained for itself the authority to review the time limit and to amend its own previous legislative action regarding it.
In , Congress clearly demonstrated its belief that it may alter a time limit in the proposing clause when it passed a bill moving the deadline from March 22, , to June 30, A challenge to the constitutionality of the extension was dismissed by the Supreme Court as moot after the deadline expired, and no lower-court precedent stands regarding that point. The Coleman decision asserted that Congress may determine whether the states have ratified in a "reasonable" time or whether the amendment is "no longer responsive to the conception which inspired it.
Therefore, under the principles of Dillon and Coleman , and based on the fact that Congress voted to extend the ERA time limit and to accept the year-long ratification period of the Madison Amendment as sufficiently "contemporaneous," it is likely that Congress has the power to legislatively adjust or remove the time limit constraint on the ERA if it chooses, to determine whether or not state ratifications which occur after the expiration of a time limit in a proposing clause are valid, and to promulgate the ERA after the 38th state ratifies.
The legality of these recissions is questionable. Only in Massachusetts, the last state to draft a new constitution, did the provincial legislature submit its proposal to the people for their approval in town meetings, where, in , freemen rejected the draft constitution because it was not written by a specially elected constitutional convention.
The next year such a convention drafted a constitution which Massachusetts freemen approved. This constitution of and its process of ratification would serve as a model for future American constitution-writing.
In June , the Second Continental Congress appointed a committee to draft articles of confederation. The final draft was submitted to the state legislatures in November for their unanimous approval. Seven states ratified the Articles quickly while also submitting proposed amendments to the Articles.
Congress rejected all of the proposed amendments. It took three and a half years to ratify the Articles because of the requirement of the unanimous approval of the state legislatures. Between and , Congress proposed and the states considered half a dozen amendments to the Articles to strengthen the powers of Congress. All of them had the support of a large majority of both the states and the people.
But because the Articles required the unanimous ratification of the state legislatures, none of the amendments were adopted. Slim majorities in one or two states opposed the transference of power from the states to Congress.
The delegates to the Constitutional Convention of were familiar with this decade-long constitutional heritage. The first steps in ratifying the new constitution occurred before and during the meeting of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in May A widespread, uncoordinated campaign took place throughout the country to convince the people that the Articles of Confederation needed to be revised to maintain the Union.
The printers of the Northern Centinel in Lansingburgh, N. 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. While the convention process has yet to be triggered, efforts to do so are not new.
Interest in a U. In the early s, direct election of senators was a hot topic. In the s and s, federal taxing power was the focus of many applications.
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