As the United States marks its 250th anniversary this year, most Americans favor several major changes to the nation’s political system. Achieving those changes, however, likely would require doing something that hasn’t been done in decades: amending the U.S. Constitution.
In public opinion polls, majorities of U.S. adults express support for ideas like imposing term and age limits on elected officials, limiting spending on political campaigns, and choosing the president by direct popular vote instead of through the Electoral College.
But few of those ideas are being actively debated. One big reason: They probably would require amending the Constitution, which takes a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of the states, or 38 out of 50. Congress could also call a convention to propose constitutional amendments if at least two-thirds of states request one, but that’s never happened (nor is it clear how such a convention would work in practice).
The U.S. Constitution is among the most difficult in the world to amend, and some experts question whether doing so is even possible in today’s fractured political climate. The Constitution has been in effect for 237 years but has been formally amended just 27 times, most recently in 1992.
Which changes to the political system do Americans support?
Pew Research Center surveys in recent years have found broad support – often in both political parties – for several ideas that would, if enacted, represent significant changes to the U.S. political system.
- In a 2023 survey, 87% of Americans favored limiting the number of terms that members of Congress can serve. That included 90% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and 86% of Democrats and Democratic leaners.
| Independent variable | Dem/Lean Dem | Rep/Lean Rep | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elected officials in Washington, D.C. | 76 | 82 | 79 |
| Supreme Court justices | 82 | 68 | 74 |
| date | Change the current system so the candidate who receives the most votes wins | Keep current system so the candidate who wins Electoral College vote wins |
|---|---|---|
| 9/2/2024 | 63 | 35 |
| 7/16/2023 | 65 | 33 |
| 7/4/2022 | 63 | 35 |
| 1/15/2021 | 55 | 43 |
| 1/20/2020 | 60 | 37 |
| 3/7/2018 | 55 | 41 |
| 11/17/2016 | 51 | 44 |
| 10/11/2011 | 62 | 35 |
| 10/1/2004 | 61 | 35 |
| 12/1/2000 | 59 | 37 |
| 11/1/2000 | 61 | 35 |
| 1/1/2000 | – | – |
- In the same survey, 79% of Americans favored putting a maximum age limit in place for federal elected officials, while 74% favored the same thing for U.S. Supreme Court justices. Majorities in both partisan coalitions expressed support for these changes.
- 72% of Americans also said that there should be limits on how much money individuals and organizations can spend on political campaigns. Around three-quarters of Democrats (76%) favored this, as did 71% of Republicans.
- In 2024, more than six-in-ten Americans (63%) said that they would prefer to elect the president directly through a nationwide popular vote, rather than through the existing Electoral College. Unlike the issues discussed above, this one had a distinct partisan tilt: 80% of Democrats supported a popular vote system, compared with 46% of Republicans.
Americans also have expressed broad support for other types of constitutional change. For instance, in 2020, when there was a renewed push to ratify the failed Equal Rights Amendment, 78% said they strongly or somewhat favored adding it to the Constitution.
Major change wouldn’t be easy
Rulings from the Supreme Court strongly suggest that these changes would require a constitutional amendment – an unusually challenging process.
Term and age limits
In the 1990s, several states tried to limit how many terms their senators and representatives could serve in Congress. But in a 1995 decision, the Supreme Court said neither the states nor Congress could impose qualifications for congressional service beyond the minimum age, residency and citizenship requirements spelled out in the Constitution itself. The same logic could apply to setting age limits for federal elected officials.
Similar issues likely would apply to attempts to limit the terms or set age limits for members of the Supreme Court. The Constitution says that federal judges, including Supreme Court justices, can hold office “during good Behaviour” – which has been interpreted to mean for life, barring impeachment or resignation. That could block any legislative effort to establish a mandatory retirement age or other age limitation.
Limiting political spending
A long line of Supreme Court decisions – dating back to 1976 and most recently in this past term – have held that spending by political campaigns is speech protected by the First Amendment. The court has repeatedly held that the only permissible reason for restricting campaign finances is to prevent “corruption or the appearance of corruption,” defined as exchanging an official action for a contribution.
There are restrictions on how much individuals can contribute directly to candidates for federal office, but those limits don’t apply to candidates who self-fund their own campaigns. And outside groups can, with certain exceptions, raise and spend unlimited sums to influence elections.
Direct presidential elections
The Electoral College’s role is spelled out in the Constitution itself, so altering or abolishing it would require an amendment.
In recent years, some states have sought to tie their electoral votes to the nationwide popular vote through an interstate compact, and thus establish direct presidential elections without formally amending the Constitution. However, it’s not clear that such an agreement would withstand judicial scrutiny.
How difficult is it to amend the Constitution?
The U.S. Constitution is the second hardest to amend across 101 democracies worldwide, according to a recent Pew Research Center analysis. The only democracy whose constitution is harder to change is the Federated States of Micronesia, a former U.S. trust territory in the South Pacific with about 76,000 inhabitants.
| Congress | Congress | Democrat | Republican | Other | Total | Start date | Group |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007-08 | 110th | 29 | 37 | 0 | 66 | 1/3/07 | past |
| 2009-10 | 111th | 29 | 46 | 0 | 75 | 1/6/09 | past |
| 2011-12 | 112th | 35 | 56 | 1 | 92 | 1/5/11 | past |
| 2013-14 | 113th | 26 | 56 | 2 | 83 | 1/3/13 | past |
| 2015-16 | 114th | 26 | 49 | 1 | 76 | 1/6/15 | past |
| 2017-18 | 115th | 29 | 42 | 0 | 71 | 1/3/17 | past |
| 2019-20 | 116th | 32 | 43 | 3 | 78 | 1/3/19 | past |
| 2021-22 | 117th | 24 | 44 | 0 | 68 | 1/3/21 | past |
| 2023-24 | 118th | 22 | 49 | 0 | 71 | 1/3/23 | past |
| 2025-present | 119th* | 16 | 51 | 0 | 67 | 1/3/25 | current |
Since 1789, lawmakers in Congress have introduced more than 12,000 measures to amend the Constitution (including 67 so far in the current Congress). The vast majority have gone nowhere.
The most recent amendment – the 27th, requiring an election to be held before any congressional pay increases can take effect – was ratified in 1992. But it was first proposed nearly two centuries earlier, when Congress sent it to the states for ratification along with what became the Bill of Rights. The congressional pay amendment didn’t receive enough support at the time, but it was resurrected in the 1980s when a college student took it up as a personal cause and persuaded enough additional states to approve it.
By contrast, the next-most recent amendment – the 26th, establishing a nationwide voting age of 18 – was introduced, approved by Congress and ratified by the states in less than six months in 1971.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, ideas with widespread support are some of the most common topics for proposed amendments. Just in the past decade, for instance, members of Congress have introduced 52 separate amendments on congressional term limits, 30 on campaign finance and nine on direct presidential elections.
Many Americans are ‘pessimistic reformers’
If there’s a disconnect between what the public wants in the way of changes and what’s politically achievable, a lot of Americans seem to be aware of it.
In a 2025 Pew Research Center survey, around three-quarters of Americans (77%) said the nation’s political system needs major changes or complete reform. But only 27% were confident that such changes could happen. All told, around half of Americans could be called “pessimistic reformers” – people who say the political system needs major changes but are not confident this can happen.
