Do you think that the requirements to pass an amendment should be lowered?

[VBM]

Yes.

[S019]

No, because I feel an easier threshold would end up being badly abused. I don't want a system where the constitution completely changes depending on who holds power. A move towards an unwritten constitution is a far better way to go about making the constitution more flexible. There are some pretty large changes I want to the Constitution (such as abolishing the 2nd amendment and making the Senate proportional and/or more advisory), but I worry make it easier to amend would just lead to lots of hyper-partisan amendments, for example a gay marriage ban would likely have passed in the 1990s if it was significantly easier to amend the Constitution (there would be way more pressure to pass one in this case).

[Ferguson97]

No.

I’m more concerned about ensuring that bad amendments fail than I am about ensuring that good ones pass.

[MarkD]

No. It is wise to make sure that any amendment be adopted only if it has wide, bipartisan appeal. Adopting an amendment that only one party likes is politically immoral.

[Vice President Christian Man]

I think that a supermajority followed by a national referendum requiring a majority vote in each state would be a good solution.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

No.

I’m more concerned about ensuring that bad amendments fail than I am about ensuring that good ones pass.

Exactly.

[SWE]

No. If it were easy to pass amendments, the only provisions of the the Bill of Rights that I trust this country to keep around are maybe the 3rd and the 7th.

[VBM]

No. If it were easy to pass amendments, the only provisions of the the Bill of Rights that I trust this country to keep around are maybe the 3rd and the 7th.

I’m not saying it should be by a simple majority, but the requirements should be lowered a little bit

[VBM]

I think the fact that even the Equal Rights Amendment couldn't be ratified shows that the requirements to pass an amendment are a bit too strict in our modern political climate. One of the two major parties has recently shown that they're willing to tank legislation that they would otherwise support just for the sake of hurting the other side's chances of being reelected.

[politicallefty]

I think the fact that even the Equal Rights Amendment couldn't be ratified shows that the requirements to pass an amendment are a bit too strict in our modern political climate. One of the two major parties has recently shown that they're willing to tank legislation that they would otherwise support just for the sake of hurting the other side's chances of being reelected.

Congress chose to add a (possibly unconstitutional) time limit to the ERA. It probably would've been ratified if it was sent to the states a few years earlier.

[Damocles]

The debate about constitutional amendment thresholds are actually quite similar to the European debates about whether individual EU member states ought to be able to exercise veto power. In both cases, my position is the same: a qualified majority should do just fine.

I think the threshold should be "any combination of two-thirds of states, whose population exceeds two-thirds of the sum of the populations of all states, as measured at the most recent decennial federal census."

So, 34 states, with a collective population of at least ~220,000,000. Sounds about right.