Amendment would require judges to be born as U.S. citizens.
H.J.Res. 204 — Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to require that certain individuals are natural born citizens. · Filed by Clay Fuller (R-GA) · Introduced Jul 21, 2026 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
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What it does
This joint resolution proposes a change to the Constitution. It would require all federal judges to be born as U.S. citizens. It would require Supreme Court justices to be born as U.S. citizens too. Right now, only the President must be born as a U.S. citizen. If three-fourths of state legislatures vote yes within seven years, it becomes law.
Who it affects
People who became U.S. citizens later in life would be barred from becoming federal judges. State legislatures would vote on whether to approve it. Judges who became citizens later could stay in office. No new judges like them could be hired.
One thing to notice
State legislatures vote on it, not voters directly. Approval depends on which parties control state legislatures.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
- Jul 21, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jul 21, 2026 — Referred to House Committee on the Judiciary · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Words to know
- federal judges — Judges who work in courts run by the U.S. government.
- state legislatures — Groups of elected people who make laws for each state.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (1,250 characters) on Jul 22, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,707 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-09-23.
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