Nor is Arkansas alone in limiting
the number of amendments to be submitted to the people at one time;
Kentucky goes farther and makes the limit two and Illinois allows but
one at a time.
The other six states whose bill failed at the last session belong to a
group of fifteen which require a special "constitutional majority" of
two-thirds or three-fifths favorable in the vote of both houses on an
amendment bill.[A] In South Carolina and Mississippi it must pass
two legislatures by this large vote, one before and one after the
referendum; in Mississippi this means four years' delay for its
sessions are quadrennial. In thirteen states the amendment bill must
pass two legislatures, in some by a constitutional majority at one
passage.[B]
Alabama is one of the states whose bill failed through the
constitutional majority rule in 1915. In that state another suffrage
bill must wait four years for the next legislative session. If this
time it surmounts the hazard of a three-fifths favorable vote it will
be faced by another hazard; for Alabama is one of nine states in which
an amendment must pass the
[Footnote A: South Carolina, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, West
Virginia, Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi--all a two-thirds vote,
and Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Maryland and Kentucky a
three-fifths vote.
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