How Many States Have Called for a Constitutional Convention?

No amendment campaign has clearly reached the 34 states needed to force an Article V constitutional convention, though the longest-running effort sits close. Counts of how many states have called for a constitutional convention vary because the Constitution is silent on how to tally the applications, and no official body keeps a certified list. The balanced budget amendment campaign, the closest of the modern efforts, is generally counted somewhere between 28 and 33 states depending on which applications you honor and which rescissions you accept.¹

Where the 34-State Number Comes From

Article V of the Constitution offers two ways to propose an amendment. Congress can propose one by a two-thirds vote of both chambers, or two-thirds of state legislatures can apply for a convention, which Congress is then required to call.² With 50 states, two-thirds is 34. The word “shall” in Article V is treated as mandatory: Congress does not get to weigh the merits of the request. No Article V convention has ever been called, so every procedural question around it remains untested.

Where the Major Campaigns Stand

Several organized campaigns are pushing state legislatures toward 34, each on a different subject. The tallies shift as legislatures pass new resolutions or withdraw old ones. As of early 2026:

Balanced budget amendment. The oldest and closest effort, with heavy momentum in the late 1970s and 1980s. Counts range from 28 to as high as 33. A Congressional Research Service report noted that if certain applications from Ohio and Michigan are combined with filings dating back decades, the total could arguably reach 34. Opponents dispute those older filings, and multiple states have rescinded their applications since the 1980s.¹
Convention of States Project. A broader application covering fiscal restraints on the federal government, limits on federal jurisdiction, and term limits for federal officials. Twenty state legislatures have passed it.
Congressional term limits. A single-subject application focused only on term limits for members of Congress. Thirteen states have passed it.
Campaign finance (Wolf PAC). Passed in five states and rescinded in two, leaving three active applications.

In February 2025, a concurrent resolution was introduced in the House calling for an Article V convention to propose a “Fiscal Responsibility Amendment.” As of early 2026 it had not advanced beyond committee.³

One advocacy group has catalogued over 700 applications submitted throughout American history and argues that any 34, on any subject, should trigger a convention. Congress has never accepted that position.¹

Why the Counts Don’t Match

Article V says two-thirds of state legislatures must apply. It says nothing about whether the applications need to address the same topic, whether they expire, or whether a state can take one back. Each silence produces a different number.

Do Applications Need to Match by Subject?

The prevailing view, and the one Congress has historically followed, is that applications must address the same or a closely related subject to count together. Under that rule, an application for a balanced budget convention and one for a term limits convention are heading toward two separate finish lines. This is what makes reaching 34 hard for any single issue. A minority view treats any 34 applications as sufficient regardless of topic, which is how some counts already claim the threshold was passed decades ago.

Do Applications Expire?

Some scholars argue that applications stay valid indefinitely unless Congress imposes a limit. Others contend that applications from the 1970s and 1980s are too stale to combine with filings from 2020, pointing to a “contemporaneousness” requirement. Proposed federal legislation has typically included a seven-year window, though no such law has passed.¹ This one question alone can swing the balanced budget total by a dozen states.

Can a State Rescind?

Between the late 1980s and 2010, more than a dozen states rescinded their balanced budget applications, often over concerns about a convention going beyond its stated scope. Whether those rescissions are legally valid is unresolved. The Constitution does not mention rescission. Some scholars argue a legislature can change its mind at any time before the threshold is met; others argue that once submitted, an application is irrevocable. In a 1939 case, the Supreme Court suggested that questions about the validity of state actions in the amendment process may be political questions left to Congress rather than the courts.¹

There Is No Master List

No single federal office maintains an authoritative record of active applications. State legislatures have historically sent them to a scattered set of congressional officers. The Senate logs each one as a “petition or memorial” with a POM number; the House records only a digest rather than the full text. After a session ends, the documents go to the National Archives, where they are spread across various holdings with no centralized index.¹ Outside tracking organizations do the counting, and they disagree.

Historical Near-Misses

The convention mechanism has never been triggered, but it has come close enough to move Congress on its own. Between 1890 and 1905, thirty-one state legislatures passed resolutions calling for a convention or urging Congress to propose an amendment providing for the direct election of U.S. senators.⁴ With the threshold within reach, Congress proposed the Seventeenth Amendment itself in 1912, and the states ratified it the following year.

A similar pattern played out with the balanced budget amendment in the 1970s and 1980s. As the tally climbed into the low thirties, the threat of a convention built pressure in Washington, though the effort ultimately stalled short of 34.

Reaching 34 Is Only Half the Process

Even if 34 states clearly applied on the same subject and Congress called a convention, any amendment the convention proposed would still need ratification by three-fourths of the states, currently 38.⁵ Congress chooses whether ratification runs through state legislatures or through specially called state ratifying conventions. State legislatures have ratified 26 of the 27 existing amendments; the convention method was used only once, for the Twenty-First Amendment repealing Prohibition.⁶

Congress has also typically imposed a seven-year ratification deadline, a practice upheld by the Supreme Court in Dillon v. Gloss. Without a deadline, an amendment can remain pending indefinitely; the Twenty-Seventh Amendment was ratified in 1992, more than 202 years after Congress first proposed it.⁷ A bloc of 13 states can block any amendment at the ratification stage, which for controversial proposals may be a harder wall than reaching 34 in the first place.

1
Congressional Research Service. The Article V Convention to Propose Constitutional Amendments – Contemporary Issues for Congress
2
Cornell Law School. U.S. Constitution Annotated Article V – Overview of Article V
3
Congress.gov. H.Con.Res.15 – 119th Congress – Calling an Article V Convention for Proposing a Fiscal Responsibility Amendment
4
Constitution Center. Interpretation – The Seventeenth Amendment
5
Cornell Law School. Overview of Article V – Amending the Constitution
6
Cornell Law School. Choosing a Mode of Ratification
7
Cornell Law School. Congressional Deadlines for Ratification of an Amendment