Among the common technical requirements are the passing by a set proportion much larger than a mere majority of the legislature; the passing of the people's vote by a majority of those voting for candidates and not merely of those voting on the amendment itself; the setting of special time and other limits for the submission of amendments, etc. Many states combine three or more of these requirements.
No impediment seems more vexatious than that which prevented the Arkansas bill from coming before the people after the Legislature of 1915 had approved submission. Nor is Arkansas alone in limiting the number of amendments to be submitted to the people at one time; Kentucky goes farther and makes the limit two and Illinois allows but one at a time.
The other six states whose bill failed at the last session belong to a group of fifteen which require a special "constitutional majority" of two-thirds or three-fifths favorable in the vote of both houses on an amendment bill.[A] In South Carolina and Mississippi it must pass two legislatures by this large vote, one before and one after the referendum; in Mississippi this means four years' delay for its sessions are quadrennial. In thirteen states the amendment bill must pass two legislatures, in some by a constitutional majority at one passage.[B]
Alabama is one of the states whose bill failed through the constitutional majority rule in 1915. In that state another suffrage bill must wait four years for the next legislative session. If this time it surmounts the hazard of a three-fifths favorable vote it will be faced by another hazard; for Alabama is one of nine states in which an amendment must pass the
[Footnote A: South Carolina, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, West Virginia, Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi—all a two-thirds vote, and Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Maryland and Kentucky a three-fifths vote.]
[Footnote B: In Connecticut, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Vermont by a two-thirds majority of one Legislature or of one house or both; in Iowa, Indiana, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island by majorities. All but the last three have biennial Legislatures.] referendum not by a majority on the amendment but by a majority of all voting for candidates at this general election.[A]
[Footnote A: These states are Arkansas, Illinois, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Rhode Island and Tennessee. Rhode Island sets a definite majority (three-fifths) of those voting at the election. Probably Texas and North Carolina should be included but the amendment clause in their constitutions is misleading and they may be given the benefit of the doubt; their clause reads: "An amendment shall be submitted to the voters and adopted by a majority of the votes cast.">[
This requirement by itself is regarded by one authority on state constitutions[B] as making amendment practically impossible for it means that the indifference and inertia of the mass of the voters can be a more serious enemy than active opposition; the man who does not take the trouble to vote is as much to be feared as the man who votes against.
[Footnote B: Dodd, W.F. Revision and Amendment of State
Constitutions.]
A majority vote is required by the constitution of Indiana that is so extravagant as to have caused contradictory decisions in the courts. The constitution reads: "The General Assembly … (shall) submit such amendment … to the electors of the state, and if a majority of said electors shall ratify." This was interpreted in one case (156 Ind. 104) to mean a majority of all votes cast at the election, but in a later case (in re Denny) it was taken, exactly as it reads, to mean all the people in the State eligible to vote—and this in the face of the fact that the number of people eligible to vote is unknown even to the Federal Census Department. Indiana also requires that while one amendment is under consideration no other can be introduced. She is, needless to say, one of the states whose constitution has never been amended.