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January 18, 2012
Policy Analysis no. 691

Renewing Federalism by Reforming Article V: Defects in the Constitutional Amendment Process and a Reform Proposal

by Michael B. Rappaport

Michael B. Rappaport is professor of law at the University of San Diego, where he also serves as the director of the Center for the Study of Constitutional Originalism.

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The constitutional amendment procedure of Article V is defective because the national convention amendment method does not work. Because no amendment can be enacted without Congress's approval, limitations on the federal government that Congress opposes are virtually impossible to pass. This defect may have prevented the enactment of several constitutional amendments that would have constrained Congress, such as amendments establishing a balanced budget limitation, a line-item veto, or congressional term limits. The increasingly nationalist character of our constitutional charter may not be the result of modern values or circumstances, but an artifact of a distorted amendment procedure. Article V should be reformed to allow two-thirds of the state legislatures to propose a constitutional amendment which would then be ratified or rejected by the states, acting through state conventions or state ballot measures. Such a return of power to the states would militate against our overly centralized government by helping to restore the federalist character of our Constitution. Moreover, a strategy exists that would allow this reform to be enacted.

Full text of Policy Analysis no. 691

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