Why is the amendment process important
The Amendment Process
all right our notes tonight are about
the amendment process so far we've
looked at sort of how the Constitution
is set up and what the structure of it
is and so tonight we're going to take a
closer look at what the process is for
formally changing the Constitution so
before we get into it let's think for a
minute about you know kind of why the
Constitution is needed to be changed
well some things that have happened over
time because of amendments that were not
really part of the original Constitution
including a lot of things I think you
might be surprised by for example your
right to free speech and your right to
assemble and speak your mind was not in
the original Constitution the right to
free press was not in the original
Constitution your right to a trial by
jury the right of African Americans to
vote for women to vote for 18 to 20 year
olds to vote these are all things that
were not in the original Constitution
they were things that were added over
time so why are amendments necessary
that's kind of an important question to
get at here you know why do we even need
amendments for the Constitution well the
the framers the guys who wrote the
Constitution designed it as a blueprint
it's a guideline it gives the basic
structure for the government but they
knew that it wouldn't cover every
possible question about the government
or every problem that might ever arise
these were smart guys that understood
that the Constitution needed to have
some flexibility they knew that the
Constitution would have to change over
time as the nation changed as the nation
grew bigger as we moved into the future
these guys understood that
the Constitution needed to be able to
change and grow with the country so they
put in a process where we could change
the constitution to meet the needs of
the time now they also made that process
very difficult so another important
question is why do they do it that way
you know if we need to be able to change
the Constitution why is it such a hard
process to do well it's because they
they did want flexibility but they also
wanted stability they knew the
Constitution needed to change but they
didn't want to changing all the time
they wanted it to stand the test of time
and be stable and last so the framers
intentionally made it difficult to
change not impossible but difficult and
because it is so hard to change the
Constitution this helps to make sure
that any changes that we do make are
taken very very seriously
it makes sure that one political party
can't easily change the Constitution to
fit what they want right so just because
the Republicans win an election doesn't
mean they they're going to be able to
just go in and change the constitution
to benefit themselves it's it's harder
to do than that
it also makes sure that the states and
the national government have to work
together and agree that it's a good
change because if either if either one
of those groups doesn't like it it's not
going to get through and this has worked
really well over the course of the 200
plus years the Constitution has been in
effect there have been over 11,000
suggested amendments and of those we
have only changed the Constitution 27
times which is pretty impressive
especially when you think that the first
10
were passed like right away the Bill of
Rights so really from from 1800 on we've
really only changed the Constitution
about 17 times so how does it work well
this is a visual that's in the text book
and it shows that there's actually four
different paths that an amendment could
take to get to being a part of the
Constitution but we are gonna really
focus on only one because of the 27
amendments all but one have followed the
exact same path an amendment first has
to be proposed by Congress so if someone
is going to suggest an amendment in
Congress and in order to be officially
proposed it has to pass a two-thirds
vote of both the House and the Senate so
that's already going to be really hard
to do it's hard to get 2/3 of the house
or the Senate to agree on anything much
less to agree on something that's going
to be so important so it has to go
through two-thirds of the house and
two-thirds of the Senate and that is
just to get it proposed if it makes it
through Congress it then has to go to
the states and it has to be approved or
ratified by the states and it takes
three-fourths of the state legislatures
to approve an amendment in order for it
to be added to the Constitution okay so
that's something like you know 37 of the
states need to approve a proposed
amendment and again if it doesn't get to
that amount it's not going to get added
to the Constitution it's a very
difficult process
this is an example of our federal system
at work so we have you know the national
government involved through Congress and
we also have the state governments
involved so there's federalism at work
the national government proposes the
amendment and then the state governments
have to approve it and and both sides
are required any changes have got to be
approved by both the states and the
national government important to note
here too that the president is not
involved anywhere in this process so the
president and the Supreme Court cannot
do anything to block in a minute right
the president can't veto it the Supreme
Court can't call it unconstitutional
that this is entirely based on
federalism that Congress proposes
amendments and the states have to
approve it
