Amending the U.S. Constitution is even more difficult. The most common procedure requires the approval of two-thirdsof both the Senate and the House of Representatives, then ratification by three-fourths of state legislatures.The fact that our Constitution has been amended only 17 times sine the adoption of the Bill of Right in 1791 illustrates how difficult the amendment procedure is.(The last,the Twenty-Seventh Amendment of 1992 , specified no congressional pay raises without an election in between.)The Equal Right Amendment failed to pass in 1983 because fewer than three-fourths of the state legislatures voted toratify it. Japan also requires two-thirds of each house plus a majority in a referendum. The prime minister in 2003 proposed lowering the two-thirds to simple majority in both house, plus the referendum.The was controversial throughout Asia because it would make it easier to drop Article 9, by which Japan renounces the right to go to war.