The Amendments

Every amendment on this list has passed the full-spectrum gate: credible evidence of support in both parties, from MAGA Republicans to socialist Democrats. For what didn't make the list — and why — see the rejected categories; for what is still under consideration, the candidate categories. For what ratification does to the laws already on the books — in general, and amendment by amendment — see After ratification.

Campaign Finance

Concentrated money dominates American elections, and the Supreme Court has held that Congress and the states lack the power to limit it.

Term Limits

Decades-long careers in Congress and lifetime Supreme Court seats concentrate power and raise the stakes of every vacancy.

Ethics

Officials in all three branches trade securities their own decisions affect — and police their own conduct.

Privacy

Government can track communications, movements, and personal data under rules written for the paper age — or buy the data it could never lawfully seize.

Lobbying

Senior officials leave government and are paid to lobby the colleagues they just left — sometimes for foreign governments — after only short waiting periods.

Redistricting

Politicians draw their own districts — and now redraw them mid-decade whenever it helps their party.

Executive Compliance with the Courts

The constitutional order depends on presidents obeying court orders — and no explicit text requires it.

Limited Presidential Pardon Reform

Pardons can be granted in secret, to a president's own family, or to shield the president — with no requirement of transparency or accountability.

Abolition of the Punishment Exception

The Constitution still authorizes slavery and involuntary servitude as a punishment for crime, and no statute can reach a clause written into the Constitution itself.