Proposed Constitutional Amendment Requires Two-Thirds Congressional Vote to Admit New States, Making Expansion Much Harder

This Joint Resolution proposes a constitutional amendment that would fundamentally change how the United States admits new states. Right now, adding a new state—like, say, Puerto Rico or D.C.—only requires a simple majority vote (50% plus one) in both the House and the Senate, just like passing most bills. This proposal, however, would raise that bar significantly, requiring a two-thirds supermajority vote in both chambers for any future state admission. It also explicitly bans forming a new state out of the territory of an existing state without the consent of that state's legislature and Congress. If passed by Congress, this amendment would also need to be ratified by three-fourths of the states within seven years to become law.

The Supermajority Hurdle: A New Gatekeeper for Statehood

Think of the current process as getting a simple majority of your coworkers to agree on a lunch order. This amendment changes it to needing two-thirds of the office to agree on anything. By requiring a two-thirds vote in both the House and the Senate (Section 1), this bill essentially hands a powerful veto to a minority of legislators. For territories like Puerto Rico or Washington D.C., which have long sought statehood, this change moves the goalposts dramatically. If 34 out of 100 Senators or 145 out of 435 House members oppose statehood, they could permanently block it, regardless of the will of the majority of Congress or the millions of citizens living in that territory. This makes national expansion a highly difficult, consensus-only event.

Locking Down the Map: No Splitting States

Another major provision directly addresses the idea of splitting up existing states. The current Constitution already makes it difficult, but this proposal explicitly reinforces the rule that you cannot form a new state within the jurisdiction of an existing state, or combine parts of states, without the consent of the affected state legislatures and Congress (Section 2). This means that if a large state had a severe internal political divide—imagine a heavily populated urban area feeling completely unrepresented by the rural-dominated state legislature—and wanted to split off to form its own state, this amendment would make that process nearly impossible. It essentially locks in the current state boundaries unless there is overwhelming political consensus both locally and federally, eliminating one potential mechanism for internal political restructuring.

The Real-World Impact: Veto Power Over Representation

For the millions of Americans living in territories that might one day seek statehood, this amendment means their path to full federal representation just got exponentially harder. The political reality is that getting a simple majority is tough enough; securing a two-thirds supermajority often requires bipartisan agreement that is nearly impossible to achieve on politically charged issues like statehood. The result is that a powerful minority coalition gains the ability to indefinitely block the addition of new states, concentrating power among the existing 50 states and potentially stifling the expansion of democratic representation. This isn't just about abstract procedure; it's about whether future Americans can gain the voting power and representation that the rest of us take for granted.