What happens when enough states want to change the Constitution?

Civics 101

NHPR

Society & Culture, Government, History

4.6 • 2.4K Ratings

🗓️ 19 August 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Our Constitution provides for its own changes -- the framers knew that, while they worked hard, the law of the land was neither perfect nor should it be entirely immutable. So they included Article V, which allows either Congress OR the states to amend the Constitution if enough people agree. We've never had a constitutional convention of the states before, but that doesn't mean we won't. There's currently a movement trying to make it happen -- we dig into the why and how of this totally legal but very difficult path to change. CLICK HERE: Visit our website to see all of our episodes, donate to the podcast, sign up for our newsletter, get free educational materials, and more! To see Civics 101 in book form, check out A User's Guide to Democracy: How America Works by Hannah McCarthy and Nick Capodice, featuring illustrations by Tom Toro. Check out our other weekly NHPR podcast, Outside/In - we think you'll love it! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Nick, can you think of something in the Constitution that just seems, I don't know, kind of irrelevant?
0:09.9	I am so glad we're finally doing an episode about this.
0:12.9	Oh, good.
0:14.4	Look, I know it was super important to the framers.
0:17.4	Yeah, and, you know, honestly, with good reason.
0:19.3	Absolutely.
0:20.1	Think about what they had just been through, right? I hear you, Hannah. And, you know, just because it's never been applied, doesn't mean we won't need it in the future. Point of this episode. Wait, do you know something I don't know? I think maybe I know a lot of somethings that you don't know. That's fair. I just feel like I would know if this were imminent.
0:40.2	Now, I'm not saying that it's going to happen tomorrow or anything,
0:43.9	but there are people who are trying very hard to make it happen.
0:47.9	I never thought I'd see the day.
0:49.8	But we don't even know how it would work, Nick.
0:52.3	Well, I think it's pretty straightforward, actually.
0:55.0	But what is that law even going to say?
0:57.4	That I have to read him a bedtime story, make him pancakes in the morning?
1:01.6	Wait a minute.
1:02.9	What?
1:03.2	But I guess I don't have a choice if we're not in peacetime and Congress passes the law.
1:08.5	Oh, no, no, no.
1:09.8	Okay.
1:10.7	We are not making an episode about the Third Amendment.
1:15.6	Oh.
1:17.1	We're not talking about the quartering of soldiers?
	...

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