A Reminder of How Amendments to the U.S. Constitution Happen
It is up to politicians — and not a public vote
Article V of the U.S. Constitution describes in detail the process to create Amendments:
1. First, two thirds of both houses of Congress (i.e., the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives) must pass a Joint Resolution. There can also be a constitutional convention called by two-thirds of the states, but that has not happened in our history of 27 Amendments to our Constitution — they have all occurred only via congressional action.
2. Second (and there is a fair bit of paperwork, to be in between these steps), this Joint Resolution then goes to each of the state’s legislatures for three-fourths of them to ratify it. That’s 38 out of our 50 states. Territories, as usual, do not count.
That is all there is to it.
No voting by the public on any Amendments. This is another signal of our constitutional democracy, in fact being a little ‘r’ republic form of government.
Our founding fathers disdained pure democracies — James Madison said, “there is nothing to check the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious individual.” And it was Benjamin Franklin who (when asked if the new United States would be a monarchy or a republic) stated, “a republic, if you can keep it.”
There may be some time limits placed in the Amendment language in Step 1, for Step 2 to occur (as there was in the process of adding the 22nd Amendment which placed term limits on the presidency, and which for this Amendment had to be ratified by the states within seven years; but it was, within the timeframe allowed).
Historically, our Constitution has been amended only once to repeal a prior Amendment (the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment, ending the Prohibition era and the national ban on alcohol sales — leaving it to the states to regulate).
And as a reminder of exactly what the 22nd Amendment consists of, Section 1 reads:
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.
So, while presidential elections every four years may appear to shift priorities — and many times do shift political parties — the process to change our Constitution requires more than just a simple majority rule — and is a rare legislative scenario where the consensus of both the federal and state level governments is required.
And finally, if there were any questions about whether any federal elector to the Electoral College could switch their pledge and vote for a different candidate, that was resolved in a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, stating
Electors are not free agents; they are to vote for the candidate whom the State’s voters have chosen.
Our elaborate system of checks and balances between the three federal branches of government (executive, judicial, and legislative) may be the only template for governments in the world — and it is certainly the longest sustaining.
Can these checks and balances be eroded? Absolutely. To the result of an end of our “democratic experiment”? Maybe.
Abraham Lincoln, before the start of the U.S. Civil War when the Southern States were threatening to secede from the Union, stated
Our popular Government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it our people have already settled — the successful establishing and the successful administering of it. One still remains — its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it.
Is there a nexus to Emergency Management? Also, a maybe.
Project 2025 proposes moving the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) out of the Department of Homeland Security, to either the federal Department of Transportation or the Department of the Interior.
It also proposes privatization of FEMA’s National Flood Insurance Program, shifting (as in eliminating federal grant programs) funding for preparedness to the states and localities, and removing all unions in the department (not sure which department) for national security purposes. There are also recommendations to change the way FEMA supports incidents (including non-natural threats and hazards) through the U.S. Stafford Act.
All of these — as well as any changes to adjacent and aligned federal partners (such as the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Secret Service, the FBI, etc.) will have impacts to Emergency Management in the United States. If any of these recommendations come to fruition, they will mark the most significant shifts in Emergency Management in the United States, since 9/11.
However, none of these Emergency Management changes require Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. All that is required is either Executive Orders from the President and/or changes to the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations by Congress.
Barton Dunant writes about Emergency Management, with a focus on U.S. federal level advocacy for positive changes. Medium subscribers can see recent stories, such as:
https://medium.com/policy-panorama/the-elephant-is-still-in-the-room-at-the-u-s-capitol-c885b465f6e0
