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When was the 27th amendment of the Constitution voted into LAW.
Executive Summary
The Twenty-Seventh Amendment was proposed by the 1st Congress in 1789 and completed its long ratification process in May 1992; Michigan’s ratification on May 7, 1992 provided the thirty-eighth state needed to meet the three‑quarters requirement for adoption [1] [2]. The Archivist of the United States certified the amendment’s ratification on May 18, 1992, and Congress formally voted to acknowledge and accept that certification with a concurrent resolution—Senate unanimous, House 414–3—on May 20, 1992, marking the formal congressional acknowledgment that the amendment was part of the Constitution [3] [4]. These three dates—May 7 (decisive state ratification), May 18 (certification), and May 20, 1992 (Congressional acceptance)—appear across authoritative accounts and explain why different sources emphasize different moments as when the amendment became law [1] [3] [4].
1. How a 1789 Proposal Became a 1992 Constitutional Reality — The Unconventional Timeline
The Textbook account begins in 1789 when Congress transmitted the proposed amendment as part of a package of amendments that later became the Bill of Rights, but this particular provision languished and did not achieve the required number of state ratifications for nearly two centuries; the ratification campaign revived in the 1980s and early 1990s and culminated with states completing their approvals between 1982 and 1992 [5] [1]. Sources uniformly document that the amendment’s journey is unusual because it lacked a contemporaneous congressional deadline and therefore remained open to ratification across generations; this absence of a time limit is central to why a proposal from 1789 was legally adopted in 1992 [5] [6]. The history is important context for why multiple authoritative dates are cited in modern accounts rather than a single simple “vote into law” moment [1].
2. The Decisive State Vote — Why May 7, 1992, Matters
Michigan’s ratification on May 7, 1992 is the commonly cited decisive event because it pushed the total number of state ratifications to thirty‑eight, meeting the three‑quarters constitutional threshold required to add an amendment [1] [2]. Contemporary historical summaries and government histories mark May 7 as the point at which the amendment achieved state ratification sufficiency, and many references therefore treat this as the date the amendment was effectively ratified by the states [2] [5]. When asked “when was it voted into law,” most historians point to the May 7 state milestone for ratification completeness, but official documentary formalities followed afterward, which is why some sources name later administrative dates [1] [3].
3. Certification and Congressional Acknowledgment — May 18 and May 20, 1992
After the necessary state ratifications, the Archivist of the United States issued a certification of ratification on May 18, 1992, formally attesting that the constitutional requirement had been met; this certification is the administrative act that places the ratification on official record [1] [5]. Congress then acted on that certification: on May 20, 1992, both chambers passed a concurrent resolution recognizing the amendment’s ratification—action recorded as unanimous in the Senate and 414–3 in the House—providing a legislative acknowledgment that the amendment was now part of the Constitution [3] [4]. Legal and historical accounts therefore present a sequence: state ratification (May 7), archivist certification (May 18), and congressional acceptance (May 20), and different authors emphasize different steps depending on whether they highlight the states’ completion or the formal federal recognition [3].
4. Why Some Sources Give Slightly Different Dates — A Matter of Emphasis, Not Contradiction
Variations across sources—some saying May 5, others May 7 or May 20—reflect differences in which procedural milestone each writer treats as the defining legal moment [6] [1] [3]. A few secondary summaries simplify the narrative and may state a single date without noting the certification or congressional resolution; authoritative government and archival sources record the full three‑step chronology that reconciles those simplifications [2] [3]. Readers should understand these are complementary, not contradictory, facts: May 7 is the decisive state ratification, May 18 is the Archivist’s certification, and May 20 is Congress’s formal acceptance—together they document how the amendment moved from a centuries‑old proposal into a recognized part of the Constitution [1] [4].
5. Bottom Line for the Original Question — A Clear, Multi‑date Answer
If the question asks when the Twenty‑Seventh Amendment was “voted into law,” the clearest, most comprehensive answer is to report the three linked dates: state ratification completed on May 7, 1992; the Archivist certified ratification on May 18, 1992; and Congress formally accepted that certification on May 20, 1992 [1] [3] [4]. For practical purposes historians cite May 7, 1992 as the date when the amendment achieved the necessary state approvals, while legal-administrative records point to the May 18 certification and May 20 congressional resolution as the documentary closure to the process [2] [3]. Each date is factual and documented; the choice of which to present depends on whether one emphasizes the state ratification threshold or the federal formalities that followed [5].