About Constitution Labs

A laboratory for designing amendments.

We are a nonpartisan educational nonprofit helping Americans understand and use one of America’s most powerful — and most neglected — tools: the constitutional amendment.

Why We Exist

America’s constitutional skills are rusty.

It has been a generation since the last constitutional amendment was ratified in 1992 — and that one was actually drafted and approved by Congress way back in 1789. You have to go back two full generations, to the cluster ratified between 1964 and 1971, to find the last time Americans conceived and adopted amendments to redirect their government.

How often we amend the Constitution

All 27 amendments, by year of ratification · 1791–2026

1791 1850 1900 1950 BILL OF RIGHTS · 10 RECONSTRUCTION · 3 PROGRESSIVE ERA · 4 CIVIL RIGHTS ERA · 5 27th 1992 34 YEARS — AND COUNTING
Amendments arrive in clusters, around moments of crisis and reform — then the country falls quiet. The 27th, ratified in 1992, was proposed back in 1789 and waited 202 years. None has been ratified in the 34 years since.

Not surprisingly, we have lost our muscle memory for designing and ratifying amendments. Most Americans have never seen the amendment process used in their adult lives, and few understand how it actually works. Meanwhile trust in government institutions has fallen to historic lows, while the structural tools the Founders built precisely for moments like this sit unused.

Our Mission

We broaden the understanding and use of constitutional amendments to address structural challenges facing American democracy.

Good ideas for reform can come from anywhere. Our purpose is to inspire and encourage them — and to help them move from concept to credible proposal by exposing them to rigorous, nonpartisan analysis that shows what a proposal would need to do to earn broad support. We pursue the mission in three ways:

1

We research and correct the gaps in how Americans understand the Article V amendment process.

2

We encourage and facilitate public dialogue on how amendments could address structural dysfunction in our governmental institutions.

3

We develop methodologies for rigorously analyzing the viability of structural reform proposals — and for mapping what each would need to do to improve its odds of adoption.

What Makes Us Different

Forward-looking, not historical.

Many excellent organizations do important work to improve general understanding of what is in the Constitution, how it got there, and why. That understanding is critical — but our role is different, and more forward-looking.

We help Americans understand the Article V amendment process as a living tool for addressing structural dysfunction in our governmental institutions. And we build the methods needed to test proposed structural amendments objectively, rigorously, and quickly — so the strongest ideas can be refined and improved until they have a real chance of success.

Line-art illustration of an open road leading toward a distant city skyline, snow-capped mountains to the left, and a highway sign reading Welcome to America 2050.

Our Guardrails

Preserving the public’s trust is critical.

Here’s how we protect our reputation for nonpartisanship and pragmatism.

Open to everyone

We champion the amendment process itself, and the right of any American to propose a change to the Constitution. Our public resources — explainers, frameworks, and guidance on what a ratification campaign actually takes — are open to all, whatever you hope to amend.

Structural, not political

Our laboratory analysis is reserved for nonpartisan, structural improvements to government institutions — not policy fights like abortion, firearms, immigration, religion, taxation, or the size of government. We defend the right to pursue those ideas, but our lab and tools are designed specifically for structural topics only.

No advocacy, no lobbying

As a 501(c)(3), we do not advocate or lobby for any specific amendment, nor campaign to persuade legislators or citizens. The pathways we provide are common frameworks for structural amendments, never campaign-specific plans.

The amendment process was built for moments like this one. Follow the work as we help America put it back to use.

Full site coming soon