Constitutional Amendment in AP US Government

An amendment isn't a law Congress passes, and the president's signature is not required

The Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 are laws, and they're easy to confuse with amendments. They passed Congress by simple majorities and were signed by the president. The 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th, and 24th are amendments. They went through Article V and became part of the Constitution's text.

That difference changes what each one can do. A statute can be struck down by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional, and a later Congress can repeal it. An amendment is the Constitution, so the Court can interpret it but can't strike it down. Only another amendment can undo it, which is how the 21st repealed the 18th (Prohibition).

The president has no formal role in Article V. Once Congress proposes an amendment, it goes to the states. The president's signature is not required, and there's no veto. A president can campaign for or against one, but that's informal influence.

Article V's two supermajorities, step by step

Article V gives two ways to propose and two ways to ratify:

• Propose by a two-thirds vote of both chambers of Congress, or by a national convention called when two-thirds of state legislatures apply for one.
• Ratify by three-fourths of state legislatures, or by special conventions in three-fourths of the states.

Every amendment so far has been proposed by Congress, and a national convention has never been called. Nearly all were ratified by state legislatures. The 21st is the one ratified by state conventions.

Requiring supermajorities at both stages is a federalism choice. The states are full partners in changing the national charter, and a narrow or temporary majority can't rewrite it. That high bar is why there are only 27 amendments, and the first ten (the Bill of Rights) were ratified together in 1791.

Overriding the Court: amendment, new statute, or jurisdiction stripping

Constitutional amendments get their most direct exam treatment in Unit 2: Interactions Among Branches of Government, at Topic 2.11, Checks on the Judicial Branch. That topic asks how the other branches can limit the Supreme Court's power, and ratifying an amendment is one of the listed checks. The same idea of amendments as tools that expand or restrict rights carries through Unit 3: Civil Liberties and Civil Rights.

The course's illustrative example is the Sixteenth Amendment. In Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co. (1895), the Court struck down a federal income tax. Congress couldn't pass a new statute to get around a constitutional ruling, so it proposed an amendment. Ratified in 1913, the 16th explicitly lets Congress tax incomes without dividing the tax among the states by population. Other amendments that answered Court rulings include the 14th's citizenship clause (which undid Dred Scott) and the 26th, ratified in 1971 after Oregon v. Mitchell (1970) held Congress couldn't set an 18-year-old voting age for state elections by statute.

Keep the three congressional tools separate:

A new statute works when the Court interpreted a law. Congress can rewrite the law to change the result.

Jurisdiction stripping is a law that removes certain kinds of cases from the Court's appellate jurisdiction. It limits which cases the Court can hear going forward but leaves the Constitution and past rulings as they are.

An amendment works even when the Court interpreted the Constitution. It's the strongest override and the hardest to get, since it needs the states as well as Congress.

Amendments as evidence across Units 2, 3, and 5

Beyond the Court-checking role, specific amendments serve as evidence for larger arguments in the course.

The 22nd Amendment (1951) limits presidents to two elected terms. Topic 2.6 uses it as evidence of concern about expanding presidential power.

In Unit 3, the 13th Amendment permanently abolished slavery (Topic 3.12). The 14th Amendment's due process clause carries selective incorporation, applying chosen Bill of Rights protections to the states (Topic 3.7). Its equal protection clause grounds the school desegregation rulings (Topics 3.11 and 3.12). The Ninth Amendment backs arguments that people hold rights beyond those listed, including privacy (Topic 3.9).

In Unit 5, the 15th, 17th, 19th, 24th, and 26th Amendments show how the Constitution widened who participates, from African American men and women gaining the vote to direct election of senators, the 24th Amendment's ban on poll taxes in federal elections, and voting at 18.

Writing about amendments in concept application and argument essays

If a multiple-choice option says Congress can overturn a constitutional ruling by passing a law, that's the tempting wrong answer. Only an amendment can do that. Amendments can show up as application, where a scenario or a text stimulus describes a dispute and you identify the amendment or clause at stake, or the check one branch is using on another.

In Question 1 (Concept Application), a scenario might describe Congress reacting to an unpopular Supreme Court decision. A strong answer names the specific check (ratifying an amendment), explains the Article V steps, and explains the effect. The Court's interpretation no longer controls because the constitutional text itself has changed.

In Question 3 (SCOTUS Comparison), the required cases are built on amendment clauses, such as the First Amendment in Tinker v. Des Moines or the 14th's equal protection clause in Brown v. Board of Education. Naming the exact clause beats writing "constitutional rights."

In Question 4 (Argument Essay), Article V of the Constitution can support an argument about federalism or checks and balances. The amendment process forces national and state agreement before the framework changes, which fits Madison's reasoning in Federalist 51 about dividing power.