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suberic -> RE: Our Next President?? (2/25/2005 7:27:34 PM)
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Okay, having worked with two Constitutional Lawyers when the Religious Freedom Amendment was proposed to the House of Representatives back in 1992 by Rep Istook of OK, I have a lot of information on Constitutional Ammendments.
The process breaks down to this:
- It has to be proposed in either the House or Senate and it has to have sponsors
- It then has to be voted on in committee and the presented to the floor
- Once presented to the floor, it has to pass the floor by a 2/3 majority
- If it passes it goes to the other part of Congress where these stages happen again
- If any change is made to the text, it has to go back to the originating portion where this all happens again
- It keeps going back and forth until it passes BOTH houses in exactly the same form
- If it does so, meaning that 2/3 of both the House AND Senate pass it, it goes to the states to vote on
- The states now have 7 years to vote on this proposed Ammendment to the Constitution, where the PEOPLE, not the governments of the states must pass it by a majority
- If 2/3 of the States pass it by a majority in each state, it is now a part of the Constitution, and it cannot be vetoed by the President (as this is not something he must sign) and it cannot be overturned by the Courts (since it is BY DEFINITION Constitutional).
At any point if the votes fail, the Ammendment is dead.
Now, while the Republicans can cause 1) to occur, and possibly up to 2) 3) or 4), it's doubtful if Schwartzanegar is popular enough for it to pass the states. In fact, the last one, the RFA, failed by 4 votes in the House of Representatives, even though it had a lot of support in the HoR.
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