(A News and Sentinel Op-Ed - Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

Our constitution has been amended only 27 times in its 236 years of existence. It is very hard to change. In fact, the U.S. Constitution, among all national constitutions, is the most difficult to amend in the world.

Article V of the Constitution establishes how an amendment can be made. There are two steps. First, an amendment must be passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate by a minimum of two thirds of their members or by a convention called by two thirds of the states. Second, it must be ratified by either three quarters of the state legislatures or in special conventions. The president cannot veto an amendment.

Over 12,000 amendments have been proposed in the House and Senate, but only 33 of them have been approved by Congress and sent to the states. Of these only 27 were approved by three quarters of the states. The first ten amendments were proposed in 1789, along with the Constitution itself. They were ratified in 1791 and are known as the Bill of Rights.

The 26th Amendment lowered the draft age from 21 to 18. It was ratified on July 1, 1971, only 100 days after being approved in Congress. The idea of lowering the voting age gained popular support during the Vietnam War, when the minimum age for the military draft was set at 18. Proponents argued that if a man was old enough to fight, he was old enough to vote.

The 27th Amendment took 203 years to be ratified. It requires that any law that changes the salary of members of Congress not take effect until after the next Congressional election. This amendment was approved by Congress at the same time as the Bill of Rights, but it was not ratified by a sufficient number of states. It was forgotten until Gregory Watson, a 19-year-old college student, wrote a paper for a government class in which he claimed it could still be ratified. He launched a national campaign for ratification, which ended successfully in 1992.

The status of the Equal Rights Amendment is uncertain. It would have forbidden denial of equal treatment under the law on the basis of sex. The ERA was approved by Congress in 1972. It faced stiff opposition by conservatives who said that it would require women to use unisex bathrooms and register for the draft (and serve if called up) and that it would allow abortions and same-sex marriage. The amendment had been given a time limit and on June 30, 1982, was short by three states. In light of the 27th Amendment extended ratification process in 1992, legal scholars argued that a time limit was unconstitutional. In January 2020 Virginia became the 38th state to ratify it, and the American Bar Association recognized that the ERA had met all legal barriers to be added to the Constitution. However, the national archivist refused to certify and publish it as an amendment.

Other congressionally approved amendments that failed to be ratified by the states concerned the size of the House of Representatives, foreign titles of nobility, slavery, child labor, and representation for the District of Columbia.

To learn more about the Constitution, including its amendments, join the Constitution Study Group on the second and fourth Tuesdays at 5:15 in Room 12 of the Marietta Armory.

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Jacqueline Richey, member of Living Democracy: Engaging Citizens, a local citizen group. Our mission is to inform and educate the Mid-Ohio Valley about how government works on the local, state, and federal levels and how citizens can be involved to make our democracy work. Join us the third Wednesday of each month. livingdemocracymov@gmail.com and facebook/speakforyourselfvote and Youtube channel Living Democracy.