Tracking Washington’s Constitution

State constitutions are amended far more frequently than the U.S. Constitution. While the U.S. Constitution has been amended only 27 times (and only 17 times since 1791), the nation’s state constitutions have been amended at least 7,000 times in all. Washington is no exception. Since the Washington Constitution’s ratification in 1889, the document has been amended 109 times. In other words, the Washington Constitution reflects not just the work of its nineteenth century drafters, but the ongoing work of generations of Washingtonians ever since.

This website allows you to explore the Washington Constitution in two ways: by provision, allowing you to view the current text and history of every article and section of the constitution’s text; and by year, allowing you to view amendments and their context by year of adoption.

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Each block on this histogram represents a change—e.g., a substantive change, repeal & replace, or renumbering—to an individual section rather than an amendment. Some amendments result in multiple changes, resulting in multiple blocks being attributed to one amendment. Likewise, a section may be amended more than once in an year, but these amendments will only appear as one block on the histogram. When a block or blocks are marked red in a specific year, that means that a new constitution went into effect that year.

Explore by Provision

The Constitution’s provisions are organized into articles, and each article is split into sections. Here, you can view an outline of the Constitution, see the Constitution’s full text as it stood on any date since ratification, and compare any amended provision of the Constitution to its earlier version.

Explore by Year

View the constitution’s amendments by year of adoption and historical context for significant amendments.

The Washington Constitution & Its Amendments

In 1889, the Washington constitutional convention drafted the state constitution, which was ratified by Washington voters that same year. That same year, Washington was admitted into the Union and became the 42nd state.

The original 1889 Constitution is still in effect today, although it has since been amended over 100 times. Amendments to the Constitution are referred to voters either by the legislature or a convention. A two-thirds majority vote in both the Washington House and Senate is needed to send an amendment or convention proposal to voters, who then need to approve it by a simple majority.

Of these amendments, some of the topics addressed most often were spending, debt, investment, and taxation. However, while a majority of the amendments made to the Washington Constitution were ratified between the 1950s and 1980s, significant amendments have occurred throughout Washington’s history.

Washington State Capitol. Martin Kraft.

Additional Resources

Access links to commonly referenced sources in Washington constitutional research.