Why now
The Constitution has not been amended since 1992 — and the amendment ratified that year, the Twenty-seventh, was an anti-self-dealing rule for Congress, proposed two centuries earlier (National Archives). A project that proposes new amendments owes an answer to the obvious question: why would this moment be different? Our answer is not a prediction. It is a set of measurements.
The appetite, measured
In Pew Research Center's spring 2025 survey, 77% of Americans said the nation's political system needs major changes or needs to be completely reformed — but only 27% both want major change and are confident it can happen. Pew calls the 49% in between "pessimistic reformers": people who want the system changed and do not believe it will be. Pew publishes no party breakdown for these whole-system questions (Pew's April 2026 analysis of the survey). The United States has the highest GDP per capita of the 25 countries Pew surveyed, and reports reform sentiment at the level of middle-income countries.
When Pew itself rounded up the specific changes Americans favor, it titled the piece "Most Americans favor big changes to the political system that likely would require amending the Constitution" — and those numbers do carry party breakdowns: congressional term limits at 87% (90% of Republicans, 86% of Democrats, 2023), age limits for federal officials at 79% (82% R, 76% D, 2023), limits on campaign spending at 72% (71% R, 76% D, 2023) (Pew, July 2026).
Both sides have now been on both ends
Over the past decade each party has held the presidency, and each has watched powers it once defended used in ways it opposed. That experience is visible in the polling record itself.
The Partnership for Public Service asked an identical question — whether a nonpartisan civil service is important for a strong American democracy — in three consecutive springs. Support ran 87% in 2024, fell to 66% in 2025, and recovered to 76% in 2026; among Republicans, roughly 87%, then 66%, then 78% (2024, 2025, 2026). A twenty-one-point fall and a twelve-point recovery, on a principle, in twenty-four months. On pardons, when YouGov asked in early 2025 whether it is acceptable for a president to pardon family members, 72% of Republicans and 42% of Democrats said unacceptable — each party's answer bending to excuse the power its own party's president had exercised (YouGov, 2025); we have measured the same collapse running the other way, on other pardon questions, as the presidency changed hands. On redistricting, a question naming both Texas and California found 71% opposed to mid-decade redraws (70% R, 73% D) — and between two survey waves in late 2025, as the second state joined, Republican opposition rose eight points while Democratic opposition fell seven (Marquette, November 2025).
Rules written behind a veil of ignorance — binding all future presidents and all future majorities equally — can now be weighed by both sides with the same fear in mind. No one knows who a fair rule will bind next.
The movement is already under way
The timing case is not only in surveys. Twenty-five states have formally called on Congress to propose a money-in-politics amendment, the two most recent in spring 2026, with Missouri's House passing its resolution unanimously (Democracy Renovator; The Beacon, February 2026), and in June 2026 that amendment got its first Republican-introduced congressional version (H.J.Res. 191). U.S. Term Limits reports that fourteen states have passed its Article V application — an advocacy-sourced count — with the congressional text pending as H.J.Res. 12 and S.J.Res. 1 (U.S. Term Limits). And in July 2026 the House passed a ban on foreign contributions to ballot-measure campaigns by voice vote (Ballotpedia).
What we make of it — and what we don't
Some of today's reform appetite may fade with the next change of administration. Our own research shows the pattern: several of the numbers above moved with which party held the presidency, and a support floor that tracks the White House is grievance, not consensus. So we measure for exactly that, and we build only on the numbers that held through changes of administration: term limits, the ethics rules, campaign spending limits, the symmetric redistricting rule, the lobbying waits.
We do not predict ratification. What we can say is what we have measured: half the country wants structural change and does not believe it can happen. The evidence that Americans across the spectrum already agree on specific, durable changes — published with party breakdowns, alongside everything that failed the test — is our answer to that disbelief.