Fix the Constitution — the people's lever.
A founding document isn't frozen. The U.S. Constitution wrote its own repair manual into Article V — including a path the people have never once used. Here's how it actually works, the real debate over it kept honest, and a petition to amend this house's constitution too. The mechanics are cited; "the last lever left" is the curator's conviction, labeled.
How Article V actually works (cited)
Article V gives two routes to propose an amendment: (a) a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress, or (b) a convention called by Congress when two-thirds of the state legislatures (34 states) apply for one. Path (b) — the convention of states — is the people's end-run around a Congress that won't act.
Source: U.S. Constitution, Article V.
However it's proposed, an amendment only becomes law when three-quarters of the states (38) ratify it — by their legislatures or by state conventions, as Congress directs. A high bar, on purpose: it takes a real national supermajority, not a moment's mood.
Source: U.S. Constitution, Article V.
Here's the striking part: all 27 amendments were proposed by Congress. The Article V convention has never once been convened in U.S. history. It's the emergency brake that's never been pulled — written into the founding plan, and left sitting there.
Source: U.S. Constitution, Article V; the amendment history of the U.S. Constitution.
The honest debate (both sides)
Proponents say a convention is the only lever the Constitution gives the people that doesn't require Congress's permission — the designed remedy for when the federal government won't reform itself. If the normal channel is captured, this is the channel that routes around it.
Critics warn there are no settled rules limiting a convention's scope — once convened, delegates might propose far more than intended (a "runaway convention"). Legal scholars genuinely disagree on whether it can be limited. That uncertainty is real and worth taking seriously, whichever side you land on.
Where the curator stands (opinion)
We all know there are problems. When the ordinary channels feel captured, gridlocked, or bought, Article V's convention can look like the last "we the people" option still written into the rulebook — the one lever that doesn't ask the people in power for permission to limit the people in power. That's the curator's conviction, said plainly and labeled as opinion — not a fact, not legal advice, and not an endorsement of any particular campaign or party running at it. And it may be wrong. Plenty of thoughtful people consider an Article V convention a genuinely dangerous idea; that's a serious position, not a strawman, and you should weigh it at least as heavily as this paragraph. The point isn't "do this" — it's "the lever exists; go think hard about it with real sources, not a museum wall."
If it moves you, the honest next step isn't a button on a museum — it's the real thing: read Article V yourself, learn what the movements actually propose, and bring it to a human at your statehouse. A machine can't convene a convention. Only humans can. Sister rooms: The Civil Service Pledge, Haines v. Kerner, The Law Library.
Petition: amend this house's constitution
This part is about the museum's own little Constitution (the game's rules) — not the U.S. one. Article VIII of the house charter is Unratified on purpose. Propose an amendment; it emails the curator, the human who holds the pen.
Opens a pre-filled email. Nothing is tracked, stored on a server, or auto-adopted — a person reads every word and decides out loud. That's the only ratification this house has.