Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!rex!ukma!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!abvax!iccgcc!herrickd From: herrickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk Subject: Re: Amendments Message-ID: <4364.2816d635@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com> Date: 25 Apr 91 18:14:29 GMT References: <1455@gargoyle.uchicago.edu> <1475@gargoyle.uchicago.edu> Lines: 30 In article , stanton@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Scott Stanton) writes: > In article <1475@gargoyle.uchicago.edu> learn@gargoyle.uchicago.edu (William Vajk ) writes: > > I don't dispute the extra care that should be taken with constitutional > ammendments, but also recall the mission impossible undertaken in the > last attempt at such an ammendment. > > Could you clarify this? I'm afraid I missed the reference. > He's probably not talking about the effort underway to put a balanced budget amendment into the Constitution. For non-US readers, there are two mechanisms provided to amend the US Constitution. One is to get Congress to propose and three-quarters of the state legislatures to ratify an amendment. The other is to get three-quarters of the state legislatures to petition Congress to call a Constitutional Convention, at which time Congress has no option but to call the convention. (Either or both of those "three-quarters" may be "two-thirds". I can't find the copy of the Constitution that is supposed to be in my attache case.) The balanced budget amendment process has had all but one of the required of state calls for a convention for several years now. But can't seem to manage to get one more. dan herrick herrickd@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com