Article V of the U.S. Constitution provides two alternatives for amending the nation's fundamental charter: proposal of amendments to the states by vote of two-thirds of the Members of both houses of Congress, and proposal by a convention called as a result of applications from two-thirds of the states, the "Article V Convention." From the 1960s to the 1980s, supporters of Article V Conventions mounted vigorous but ultimately unsuccessful campaigns to call conventions to consider such issues as school busing to achieve racial balance, restrictions on abortion, apportionment in state legislatures, and a balanced federal budget. Since approximately 2010, after more than 20 years of comparative inaction, the Article V Convention alternative has drawn a new generation of supporters. Advocacy groups across a broad range of the political spectrum are pushing for conventions to consider various amendments. This report provides information for Members of Congress and congressional staff on current developments in Congress, the states, and the advocacy community on the Article V Convention alternative. Two companion reports provide more exposition and analysis of this issue: CRS Report R42592, The Article V Convention for Proposing Constitutional Amendments: Historical Perspectives for Congress ; and CRS Report R42589, The Article V Convention to Propose Constitutional Amendments: Contemporary Issues for Congress . In recent years, measures proposing applications for one or more of the alternative Article V Convention proposals have been introduced in many states. David F. Guldenschuh, an attorney and scholar of the Article V Convention process who is associated with the Heartland Institute (which supports the Article V approach), reported that as of August 1, 2017, 175 applications had been introduced in the legislatures of 40 states during their 2017 sessions. To date in 2017, three states have submitted applications for a convention to consider a balanced budget as proposed by the Balanced Budget Amendment (BBA) Task Force. Four states have joined the Convention of States Project, and one has applied for the Compact for America's Compact for a Balanced Budget. At the same time, Guldenschuh identified four states that had passed resolutions rescinding one or more applications submitted at an earlier time. The present status of the most prominent Article V Convention campaigns following state action through 2017 follows. Convention advocacy groups listed below are identified in greater detail later in this report. Balanced Budget Amendment Task Force (balanced federal budget amendment) claims 28 applications, including related "legacy" applications of the 1970s and 1980s. Convention of States project (amendments restricting authority of U.S. government) lists applications from 12 states. Wolf PAC (amendment repealing corporate personhood provisions of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision) lists applications from five states. Compact for America (balanced federal budget amendment via an interstate compact) lists applications from five states for its Compact for a Balanced Budget interstate compact and Article V Convention. U.S. Term Limits (term limits for Congress amendment) lists one state application. Citizen Initiatives—Countermand Amendment (amendment providing state veto of federal laws, regulations, court decisions) lists one state application. Single Subject Amendment PAC (amendment to require public laws to include only one subject) lists one state application. Proposals for an Article V Convention are as old as the republic. According to one estimate, more than 700 have been filed since 1789, most of which have been proposed since 1900. They have included applications for a general convention and petitions for a convention to consider single-subject amendments in an estimated 47 issue areas. In the second half of the 20 th century, two campaigns for Article V Conventions approached the constitutional threshold of applications from two-thirds of the states, 34 at present. Mounted largely between 1964 and 1983, they concerned politically sensitive issues: apportionment in state legislatures, which gained 33 state applications between 1964 and 1969, and an amendment requiring a balanced federal budget under most circumstances, which gained 32 applications between 1975 and 1983. After reaching these high water marks, the reapportionment proposal lost momentum following the death of its leading advocate, while the balanced budget amendment campaign stalled in the face of growing opposition. The Article V Convention alternative returned to relative obscurity for more than 20 years. Between 1988 and 2010, 17 state legislatures passed resolutions rescinding their earlier calls for a convention. In some cases, these resolutions rescinded all previous Article V applications, while others specifically cited a convention for a balanced budget amendment. Late in the first decade of the 21st century, interest in the Article V Convention revived among a range of advocacy groups. Originally linked to the Tea Party movement and organizations generally characterized as conservative and populist, the most widely advocated convention subjects included an amendment or amendments to require a balanced federal budget, restrict the federal debt, and set general limitations on the authority and activities of the federal government. The Article V Convention's appeal spread, however, as self-identified progressive movements, such as Occupy Wall Street, began to advocate a convention for such purposes as overturning parts of the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, changing the definition of corporate personhood, or banning allegedly restrictive state voter identification requirements. The convention option is arguably attractive on several grounds: It springs unquestionably from the "original intent" of the founders, the need for state applications suggests widespread popular grass-roots origins, and the prospect of proposing amendments directly to the states offers an alternative to what some have characterized as a legislative and policy deadlock at the federal level. The revival of the Article V Convention option is arguably reflected in the actions of state legislatures. According to the Balanced Budget Amendment Task Force, an Article V Convention advocacy group, since 2010, 15 states have reversed earlier rescissions of convention applications. Conversely, since 2016, five states have rescinded their earlier convention applications, suggesting the growth of "second thoughts" in some states. A number of questions have been raised concerning the standard for a valid Article V Convention application. One issue centers on the permissible scope of state applications. What sort of convention application meets Article V's constitutional requirements? Did the framers of Article V contemplate state applications for (1) a general convention; (2) a convention to consider a single issue, such as a balanced budget amendment; or (3) a convention to consider a specific amendment, the text of which has been included or identified in the petition? Or does it give sanction to all of these alternatives? Some observers hold that only applications for a "general" convention, those that do not cite a specific policy issue or amendment, are valid. Other commentators maintain that state applications for an Article V Convention must address the same issue in order to be counted toward the two-thirds threshold established by the Constitution. Most scholars agree that applications proposing a specifically worded amendment would not meet the constitutional standard. Congress has, however, received applications calling for an Article V Convention that would consider a particular, specifically worded, amendment. The practice was most common in the 1980s, utilized by the campaign for a convention to consider a balanced budget amendment. A number of states during that period included the text of the proposed amendment in their applications. At present, the following organizations, "Compact for America," "Single Subject Amendment," and "Restoring Freedom" all propose conventions to consider specifically worded amendments, notwithstanding the opinion expressed by the House Judiciary Committee in 1993 that an application requesting an up-or-down vote on a specifically worded amendment cannot be considered valid. Another question concerns the issue of timeliness or contemporaneity: is a state application for a convention valid forever, or does it have a limited "shelf life"? If so, how long does this period of validity last? Some argue that state applications are valid for seven years, the same length of time as the ratification window established in the 20 th century for most amendments proposed by Congress. Others suggest a shelf life of two to four years for state applications. Conversely, the great majority of Article V Convention supporters generally assert that state applications are valid indefinitely, and that Congress has no authority to set a deadline. A further issue centers on the question of whether states have the constitutional authority to repeal or rescind earlier applications for an Article V Convention. Over the years, some state legislatures have passed resolutions retracting either one, some, or all of their previous applications. For instance, as noted earlier, between 1988 and 2010, an estimated 17 states passed such resolutions, although some have since rescinded their rescissions. Do states have the authority to rescind applications for an Article V Convention? Opinion is divided: some hold that the application process is only preliminary, and that states may withdraw their applications, so long as the two-thirds threshold has not been crossed. Others dispute this assertion, maintaining that that an application carries the same weight as a state's ratification of a proposed constitutional amendment, and that an application cannot be revoked or rescinded. In the past, especially in connection with the late-20 th century movement for an Article V Convention to consider a balanced budget amendment, states also frequently added self-canceling clauses to their applications rendering them null and void if Congress proposed an amendment incorporating the application's stated goals. Many supporters of the Article V Convention claim that these various distinctions are immaterial, and that all state applications are equally valid, whether they propose a general convention, a convention to consider one or more policy issues, or one to consider an amendment containing a specific text. The framers, they maintain, deliberately avoided specific requirements for state applications to be counted toward the two-thirds threshold. One advocacy group, Friends of the Article V Convention (FOAVC), maintains that one application is as good as another, that applications are valid indefinitely, and that states cannot rescind their applications. It further asserts that as soon as Congress had received applications of any sort from two-thirds of the states in the union at that time, it had a constitutional obligation to call a convention.