Can the Pardon Power Be Fixed Quickly?

According to reports, Representative Don Bacon (R-NE) has agreed to cosponsor a constitutional amendment that would give Congress oversight over presidential pardons -- apart from the existing remedy of impeaching the President, of course:

The bill was introduced by Rep. Johnny Olszewski (D-MD) last December and would allow for a minimum of 20 House members and five senators to call for congressional review of a pardon, which would lead to a 60-day deadline for Congress to nullify that pardon with a two-thirds majority vote -- similar to a veto override.

While I think the proper solution to Trump's blatant abuse of this power would be his impeachment and removal from office, this measure strikes me as a reasonable middle ground between eliminating that power altogether and having to clear the normally very high bar of impeachment to address less flagrant or obvious cases of abuse or error.

It is interesting to consider the amendment process for the Constitution, as well as history to evaluate the viability of this solution:

Under Article V, a proposal for an amendment must be adopted either by two-thirds of both houses of Congress or by a national convention that had been requested by two-thirds of the state legislatures. Following this, Congress decides whether the proposed amendment is to be ratified by state legislatures or state ratifying conventions. The proposed amendment along with the method of ratification is sent to the Office of the Federal Register, which copies it in slip law format and submits it to the states. To date, the convention method of proposal has never been tried and the convention method of ratification has only been used once, for the Twenty-first Amendment.

A proposed amendment becomes an operative part of the Constitution as soon as it is ratified by three-fourths of the States (currently 38 of the 50 states). No additional action by Congress or anyone else after ratification is required... [links and footnotes omitted, bold added]

While, historically, most amendments have taken years to be ratified, there is precedent for a rapid-enough process to do some good during Trump's term:

The Twenty-sixth Amendment (Amendment XXVI) to the United States Constitution establishes a nationally standardized minimum age of 18 for participation in state and federal elections. It was proposed by Congress on March 23, 1971, and three-fourths of the states ratified it by July 1, 1971.

That's three months from start to finish.

That noted, it is relevant that those in favor of the lower voting age had worked over most of a decade to curry widespread support for such a measure. As ill-informed and indifferent as most American voters are, and as normalized as corruption has become in American politics, it is hard for me to imagine enough outrage over Trump's pardons to cause this proposed amendment to be ratified during Trump's term.

That said, my off-the-cuff opinion is Go for it, anyway and better late than never.

-- CAV