Eli5: Why hasn’t the U.S constitution been amended since 1992?

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Eli5: Why hasn’t the U.S constitution been amended since 1992?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Amending the constitution is (intentionally) very difficult. Because the US is functionally a two-party system and no party ever gets a 2/3 majority at the federal level now, there needs to be (partial) bipartisan support for any amendment. There hasn’t been any subject that has passed that threshold since 1992.

The more partisan the US becomes, the harder it becomes to amend the constitution because the parties are less and less likely to work together on anything.

There is an alternate mechanism to amendment, called a “constitutional convention” called by 2/3 of the states. A constitutional convention amendment has never been done though, and it doesn’t look likely that 2/3 of the states would agree on anything either right now.

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