State Constitutional Conventions and State Legislative Power

The State of Tennessee faces a serious problem in that it badly needs changes in its Constitution of 1870 and finds it substantially impossible to make such changes by means of proposed amendments by the two houses of its General Assembly. The requirements (1) that legislative proposal be by a majority of all members of the two houses and that it be agreed to by two thirds of the General Assembly then next chosen, and (2) that approval of a proposed amendment be "by a majority of all the citizens of the State, voting for Representatives," ' substantially defeat possibility of change, as has been found with respect to such requirements in other states. The further requirement that amendments are not to be proposed oftener than once in six years materially restricts legislative proposals, and such proposal if made has little chance of adoption. In the State of Tennessee there appears to be no possibility that the General Assembly should submit a revised constitution to popular vote as was done in the State of Georgia in 1945.