One Heartbeat Away

This is the title of Birch Bayh's 1968 book on the proposal and ratification of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. It's probably the best account of how an amendment moves through the process from beginning to end. I wanted to highlight a couple of points:

1. The first is that was the era where the ABA's influence was at its height. The organization was heavily involved in rallying support for the 25th Amendment. Lewis Powell, later Justice Powell, played a role in these efforts. Perhaps the ABA is just another victim of polarization, though there may be other factors in its decline.
2. In constitutional design, there is often a debate between formalists and functionalists. Formalists want amendments and functionalists want statutes. Formalists also often want more detailed amendments while functionalists want shorter ones. You see this divide in the 25th Amendment debate. Some people wanted Congress just to enact a law on presidential disability. Others wanted an amendment to simply clarify that Congress had that power. The 14th Amendment saw a similar dynamic, with Bingham wanting an amendment and Stevens wanting statutes. Might be a theme for my book.
3. There is an extended discussion on how conference committees work. This led me to wonder: Do they even have those anymore? Perhaps Congress still does this for ordinary legislation, but for bigger items this is all done at the leadership level.