What does it take to get a constitutional amendment ratified in the U.S.?
What does it take to get a constitutional amendment ratified in the U.S.?
I don't mean the actual rules of passing it, I mean what organization, activities and funding are necessary to do so.
The last one passed was in 1992 and it was just about congressional pay. Last one before that was 1971. Is there some kind of play book? It seems to happen so infrequently that it would be hard to study and conditions would vary enough that the last effort wouldn't be useful as a model.
("The amendment process is very difficult and time consuming: A proposed amendment must be passed by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, then ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states." Link)
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It seems like you have come to a valid answer yourself? If you could get a better answer, what format would it be in?
I don't know what I don't know. But as an example, the model of running for president is fairly well established - a national party lends its support to your campaign, you run national ads, you go on speaking tours, you have networks of supporters specific to each state, etc. Their platform tends to be the platform of the national party with minor variations.
Because amendments need 2/3 of both chambers and 3/4 of states that seems to preclude a party based approach, or does it? How much of ratified amendments' passing was because of some confluence of historical factors vs a preplanned and organized effort?
When I talk with someone from any line of work they inevitably have interesting things to say about their field that wouldn't have occurred to me. What are those things in the field of "passing constitutional amendments?"
Ultimately I ask because I want to see a bunch of amendments ratified, I don't exactly have confidence they will be but would love to see more discussion.
The amendment process is basically dead because the politicians realized that it's much easier to just get a majority of the Supreme Court to say what you want it to say.
party based approach
yes, the supermajority requirement definitely precludes a monolithic single-party approach. parties can still be involved, but the word you are looking for is “bipartisanship.” given all historical amendments, both leading parties need to have significant approval, though of course the degree of this varies. i believe the most partisan amendment was the 13th which only was successfully passed when several democrats volunteered to switch sides. nevertheless both parties were still very much involved.
historical factors vs organized effort
these are poorly defined terms unfortunately. historical factors also influence organized effort, and vice versa. there’s too much overlap to make any meaningful statements on these terms.
the reason you won’t get “industry tips” for this process is because there is barely a market for it. your example of the presidential campaign “line of work” illustrates this well; presidential campaigns happen every four years for not one, but dozens of candidates.
it’s sort of like you’re asking “how do i build the next Apple Inc.?” the only answers that fit in a comment section are
a) the socioeconomic factors are incalculable and any neatly wrapped answer you got delivered to your door by an angel would become out of date within weeks OR
b) a funk ton of money
If a single party could force thru amendments they halt all elections via amendment.
exactly. there’s a reason we see more supreme court stacking these days than amendment campaigns.