![]() In 2020, following final ratification by Virginia, the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel under the Trump Administration published a memo on whether the ERA could be published in the Constitution. Even with the required supporting the ERA, ratification remains elusive because of the seven-year deadline. In 2020, Virginia became the final state needed to ratify the ERA. The final three states ratified the ERA beginning in 2018, when Illinois and Nevada propelled successful legislative initiatives toward the finish line, putting the ERA one state away from achieving the 38-state threshold for ratification. Even now, public opinion still favors final ratification and publication, with 3 of 4 Americans supporting the ERA. In 2013, the National Archives called the ERA “ the most popular never-ratified amendment.” At the time, the ERA made up ten percent of all the amendments ever proposed to the Constitution, but it never made it into the Constitution. Congress extended the ratification timeline for three more years, but by the time the deadline expired in 1982, only 35 states had ratified it, leaving it three short of the needed states. Thirty states ratified the amendment in the first year, but then momentum slowed. Congress derives its power to set a time limit from its authority to designate a mode of ratification. Before the twentieth century, there was no discussion of imposing a time constraint on the state’s consideration of a proposed amendment. The idea of time limits on constitutional amendments is a modern congressional addition to the amendment ratification process. The catch was that Congress attached a seven-year timeline for ratification by the required 38 states. The ERA’s Seven-Year Ratification DeadlineĪfter Congress finally passed the amendment with the required votes, it headed to the states for ratification. The Senate offered final approval in 1972. Griffiths tried again in 1972, and that’s when the hard work of Griffiths and her female colleagues, including Shirley Chisolm (D-NY) and Margaret Heckler (R-MA), finally got the amendment approved by the House in 1971. Still, the Senate offered an amendment that exempted women from the draft, and a conference committee could not find common ground before the end of that session of Congress. This is a battle with the Supreme Court of the United States.” The debate was successful, and the US House passed the bill. ![]() Speaker, this is not a battle between the sexes-nor a battle between this body and women. When the bill came to the floor, Griffiths said, “Mr. Griffiths successfully gathered the necessary signatures in 1970 by personally asking members, calling in favors, and following up with reluctant male members of Congress until she persuaded them to add their names to the petition. In 1970, she used a discharge petition, which required a majority of signatures (218), to move the bill from a committee to the floor of the US House for consideration. Still, it never managed to get out of the Judiciary Committee. In 1955, Representative Martha Wright Griffiths (D-MI) was elected to Congress and began introducing the ERA in every session of Congress. Martha Wright Griffiths: Mother of the ERA It was introduced in every single Congress, but it wasn’t until a new champion came along that it made it to the floor of the House and Senate. In the US, her proposed ERA enjoyed bipartisan support from the Republican and Democratic parties when it was added to the party platforms in the 1940s. The WWP also fought to establish the UN Commission on the Status of Women. In the 1930s, she moved abroad and formed the World Woman’s Party, which fought for the inclusion of gender equality in the UN Charter. Paul was a tireless advocate for equality. She got the ERA introduced into Congress the same year she announced it. Refusing to leave activism behind, she continued the movement for equality after many well-known suffragists left public life. ![]() In 1923, just three years after the 19th Amendment was ratified, Alice Paul began her post-suffrage crusade of ensuring that men and women had equal rights throughout the United States. Tell Your Representatives to Support the ERA The Alice Paul Amendment In honor of its 100th anniversary, we offer a look back at their work, how the ERA progressed, and where we are in the fight for equality. The ERA has a long history of champions who aimed to achieve “equality of rights under the law” for people of all sexes in our Constitution. 2023 marks the 100th anniversary of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA).
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