WHAT IS AN AMENDMENT?

Last week I tried to explain the word amendment to a person who spoke limited English. Amendment is not a word I have thought much about. All attorneys know the words, "as amended" are often part of a legal citation of a statute. (A statute is the correct legal term for a part of the law. A citation is the correct legal term for correctly describing the statute. The citation has the big section of the law first, then the number of the paragraph being referenced.)

After a law or a constitution gets adopted (becomes legally a part of the laws), it can be changed. If the law is no longer a law at all, it is called "repealed". If the law is changed, the change is called an "amendment".

An amended law is a combination of the original law and the amendment. The only time it makes a difference when an amendment is passed* is if the act that someone did was not addressed in the original law and the act was done before the amendment is passed. (There are no ex post facto laws in the US, due to the Bill of Rights, which is what we call the the first 10 amendments to the US constitution.)**

THIS IS REALLY BASIC STUFF. Sort of 6 x 6 = 36 stuff. It is FRIGHTENING that a candidate for the US Senate does not know that an amendment to a constitution is a integral part of the constitution.

* "Passing" a law is not the same as enacting a law. Passing means that, in one legislative group, the necessary number of legislators voted for the law. "Enacting" a law means that all the groups and people who have to approve the law have approved the law. "Adopting" is generally used for constitutions, when all of the groups and people who have to approve the constitution, have approved the constitution.

** An ex post facto law is a law that makes an act that has already been done, which was legal when done, into an act that is now against the law. For instance, in 1990 a woman dumps blue dye into the river. In 1992, a law is passed stating that dumping blue dye into the river is illegal. The woman can not be arrested as she dumped the blue dye BEFORE the law was passed. A law passed in 1992, making dumping blue dye in 1990 illegal, is unconstitutional as an ex post facto law.