Quoting Russell Coker (russell@coker.com.au):
In the US to change the constitution there has to be a constitutional convention which then has wide ranging powers to change things.
That's one of _two_ means provided to change the US Constitution -- the one that's never been used in 229 years. ;-> 1. Convention method: It should be stressed that such a convention would get convened by Congress only if 2/3 of the state legislatures request one, _and_ that any resulting proposed amendments would take effect _only_ if ratified by 3/4 of the state legislatures[1] (as a safeguard against a runaway convention). 2. Regular method: The other method, passage of an amendment by a 2/3 supermajority of each house of Congress followed by required ratification by the same 3/4 of state legislatures as a safeguard, has been used 33 times since 1789 (27 times successfully, 6 times not). Actually, in one of the 27 successful cases, for the 21st Amendment, Congress chose an alternate ratification procedure, where state ratifying conventions rather than legislatures approved it.[2] Both methods, convention and regular, are covered by Article V, if you care to see details. https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution/article-v.html (It's quite short.) As an odd quirk, Article V imposed two invariance (i.e., unamendable text) provisions, a la GFDL. The first has now expired; the second purports to be permanent. 1. Until the year 1808, the amendment process was prohibited from amending/removing the Article 1, Section 9, Clause 1 legal protection of the international slave (import) trade from legal impediment, and likewise the Article 1, Section 9, Clause 4 provision prohibiting taxes against states other than proportional to population. (Obviously, these prohibitions are now a dead letter, but were part of the difficult negotiations that made the Constitution palatable under the political strains then prevalent.) 2. Permanantly, no change may be made to every state's right to an equal vote in the Senate (without that state's consent). There is of course an undocumented _third_ way to amend the USA's fundamental law, which is to walk away from it and declare that the country is starting over -- this being the method used in 1776 to disestablish the American colonies' former Constitution, that of Great Britain. (One might say this was attempted by the Confederate States of America, 1861-1865, which initiative was, um, opposed.) [1] That's 38 of the current 50 states. [2] This was an amendment to overturn the 18th Amendment prohibiting the sale and transportation of most alcoholic beverages ('Prohibition'). Proponents of the new amendment alleged that irregularities in the adoption of the 18th Amendment by legislatures, among other problems, made it illegitimate. Addressing that argument, Supreme Justice Brandeis raised the perceptive question: 'The Court would like to know, in what way do counsel think that the new Article [Amendment could be constitutionally made?' Thus the 21st Amendment's different ratification procedure, chosen as a 'by the people' alternative in an effort to answer Justice Brandeis's awkward question. Here's a paper on this matter with numerous amusing highlights, like how the 18th was passionately advocated in the House of Representatives by a devout North Carolina Christian reading a story from the Quran. http://foundthreads.com/PDF%20FILES/04-CITIZEN.pdf