Press Release, "The Clancy Plan"

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio -- "State legislatures should be limited to a single session for consideration of amendments to the federal constitution," says Daniel Francis Clancy. Clancy, a prize-winning newspaperman and long-time student of constitutional amendments, is author of a widely praised plan for improving the method of amending the constitution. The Clancy Plan, its author claims, would correct the inequities of past amendment procedure. These inequities, he says, have been--(1) too much time to ratify, permitting a series of legislatures in each state to ponder the same proposal, and (2) permitting a later legislature to ratify an amendment which an. earlier legislature rejected or ignored. Early amendments were submitted to the states without time limits for ratification. The 18th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd Amendments carried a seven-year limit for action by the states. The average time required for ratification of the first 21 amendments was only 21 months, although the recent 22nd no-third- term amendment took a record 43 months to achieve ratification. "The rapidity of transportation, communication and cryst alization of public opinion have certainly accelerated, and approximat ely 24 months would be a sufficient and equitable period for ratification, Clancy claims. Although one or more sessions of a state legislature may reject or ignore a proposed amendment, under present procedure a later session may ratify the amendment. Although the power of a legislature to ratify "persists despite a p evious rejection" (Coleman et al V. Miller et al, 307 KXX U.S. 433, Supreme Court 1939). , still, ratification of an amendment, once duly given, is MORE -