To: President Donald Trump, The United States House of Representatives, and The United States Senate
Support Gender Equality. Pass the Equal Right Amendment Three-State Strategy
Give women and girls constitutional gender equality
Why is this important?
Urge the United States House of Representatives, the United States Senate, and President Obama to pass H.J.RES.15/S.J. RES. 15 which is the Three-State Strategy to verify the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment as part of the Constitution.
H.J.RES.43/S.J. RES. 15?
H.J.RES.51/S.J. RES. 15, sponsored by U.S. Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-CA 14) and U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), is the bill resolution for the Three-State Strategy to verify the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment as part of the Constitution.
H.J.RES.51/S.J. RES. 15, would eliminate the time limit for ratification of the equal rights amendment (prohibits discrimination on account of sex) proposed to the states in House Joint Resolution 208 of the 92nd Congress, second session. It declares that such amendment shall be part of the Constitution whenever ratified by the necessary number of additional states.
What is the Equal Rights Amendment?
The Equal Rights Amendment is an amendment that promotes gender equality in the United States constitution. It states, "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex." (http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/">www.equalrightsamendment.org)
Since the United States has been a country, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) has not become a part of the United States Constitution.
What is the Equal Right Amendment Three-State Strategy?
The Equal Rights Amendment, passed by Congress in 1972, would have become the 27th Amendment to the Constitution if three-fourths of the states had ratified it by June 30, 1982. However, that date passed with only 35 of the necessary 38 state ratifications. Instead, the 27th Amendment is the "Madison Amendment," concerning Congressional pay raises, which went to the states for ratification in 1789 and reached the three-fourths goal in 1992.
The fact that a 203-year ratification period was accepted as valid has led ERA supporters to propose that Congress has the power to maintain the legal viability of the ERA and the existing 35 state ratifications. If so, only three more state ratifications would be needed to make the ERA part of the Constitution. Legal analysis supporting this strategy was developed in 1995 by Allison Held, Sheryl Herndon and Danielle Stager, then third-year law students at the T. C. Williams School of Law in Richmond, VA. Their article, "http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/misc/W&M%20law%20article.pdf">Why the ERA Remains Legally Viable and Properly Before the States," was published in the Spring 1997 issue of William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law.
Article V of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to propose an amendment and to determine the mode of ratification, but it is silent as to the power of Congress to impose time limits or its role after ratification by three-fourths of the states.
It is important to note that Congressional promulgation is not a necessary feature of Article V. In the history of the amendment process Congress has promulgated only two amendments, the 14th and the 27th, following the final state ratification. In addition, the requirement for ratification within a "sufficiently contemporaneous" time frame and the chronological definition of "contemporaneous" are now open to question in light of the Madison Amendment experience.
Despite arguments by proponents that the Equal Rights Amendment should go to the states without a time limit in the tradition of the 19th Amendment, the ERA passed Congress in 1972 with a seven-year time limit in its proposing clause. If the time limit had been placed in the text of the amendment itself, that restriction would not be subject to alteration by Congress after any state legislature had ratified. However, the ERA language ratified by 35 states between 1972 and 1982 (see above) did not contain a time limit for ratification.
By transferring time limits from the text of an amendment to the proposing clause, Congress retained for itself the authority to review the limit and to amend its own previous legislative action regarding that time limit. In 1978, Congress clearly demonstrated its belief that it may alter a time limit in the proposing clause when it passed an extension of the original seven-year limit for ERA ratification and moved the deadline from March 22, 1979, to June 30, 1982. A challenge to the constitutionality of the extension was dismissed by the Supreme Court as moot after the deadline expired, and no lower-court precedent stands regarding that point.
The Coleman decision asserted that Congress may determine whether the states have ratified in a "reasonable" time or whether the amendment is "no longer responsive to the conception which inspired it." Congress therefore could determine that the time period since the ERA went to the states for ratification in 1972 is "reasonable" and "contemporaneous" (particularly in light of the fact that it deemed the Madison Amendment's 203 years to be so), and it could decide that the ERA remains "responsive to the conception which inspired it" (indisputably so, since the fact that women's equal rights are not constitutionally affirmed will remain unchanged until the Constitution is amended or interpreted to establish unequivocally that women and men have equal rights).
Therefore, under the principles of Dillon and Coleman, and based on the fact that Congress voted to extend the ERA time limit and to accept the 203-year-long ratification period of the Madison Amendment as sufficiently "contemporaneous," it is likely that Congress has the power to legislatively adjust or remove the time limit constraint on the ERA if it chooses, to determine whether or not state ratifications which occur after the expiration of a time limit in a proposing clause are valid, and to promulgate the ERA after the 38th state ratifies.
Why do women need the Equal Rights Amendment?
The fourteenth amendment of the United States Constitution grants c...
H.J.RES.43/S.J. RES. 15?
H.J.RES.51/S.J. RES. 15, sponsored by U.S. Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-CA 14) and U.S. Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), is the bill resolution for the Three-State Strategy to verify the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment as part of the Constitution.
H.J.RES.51/S.J. RES. 15, would eliminate the time limit for ratification of the equal rights amendment (prohibits discrimination on account of sex) proposed to the states in House Joint Resolution 208 of the 92nd Congress, second session. It declares that such amendment shall be part of the Constitution whenever ratified by the necessary number of additional states.
What is the Equal Rights Amendment?
The Equal Rights Amendment is an amendment that promotes gender equality in the United States constitution. It states, "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex." (http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/">www.equalrightsamendment.org)
Since the United States has been a country, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) has not become a part of the United States Constitution.
What is the Equal Right Amendment Three-State Strategy?
The Equal Rights Amendment, passed by Congress in 1972, would have become the 27th Amendment to the Constitution if three-fourths of the states had ratified it by June 30, 1982. However, that date passed with only 35 of the necessary 38 state ratifications. Instead, the 27th Amendment is the "Madison Amendment," concerning Congressional pay raises, which went to the states for ratification in 1789 and reached the three-fourths goal in 1992.
The fact that a 203-year ratification period was accepted as valid has led ERA supporters to propose that Congress has the power to maintain the legal viability of the ERA and the existing 35 state ratifications. If so, only three more state ratifications would be needed to make the ERA part of the Constitution. Legal analysis supporting this strategy was developed in 1995 by Allison Held, Sheryl Herndon and Danielle Stager, then third-year law students at the T. C. Williams School of Law in Richmond, VA. Their article, "http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/misc/W&M%20law%20article.pdf">Why the ERA Remains Legally Viable and Properly Before the States," was published in the Spring 1997 issue of William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law.
Article V of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to propose an amendment and to determine the mode of ratification, but it is silent as to the power of Congress to impose time limits or its role after ratification by three-fourths of the states.
It is important to note that Congressional promulgation is not a necessary feature of Article V. In the history of the amendment process Congress has promulgated only two amendments, the 14th and the 27th, following the final state ratification. In addition, the requirement for ratification within a "sufficiently contemporaneous" time frame and the chronological definition of "contemporaneous" are now open to question in light of the Madison Amendment experience.
Despite arguments by proponents that the Equal Rights Amendment should go to the states without a time limit in the tradition of the 19th Amendment, the ERA passed Congress in 1972 with a seven-year time limit in its proposing clause. If the time limit had been placed in the text of the amendment itself, that restriction would not be subject to alteration by Congress after any state legislature had ratified. However, the ERA language ratified by 35 states between 1972 and 1982 (see above) did not contain a time limit for ratification.
By transferring time limits from the text of an amendment to the proposing clause, Congress retained for itself the authority to review the limit and to amend its own previous legislative action regarding that time limit. In 1978, Congress clearly demonstrated its belief that it may alter a time limit in the proposing clause when it passed an extension of the original seven-year limit for ERA ratification and moved the deadline from March 22, 1979, to June 30, 1982. A challenge to the constitutionality of the extension was dismissed by the Supreme Court as moot after the deadline expired, and no lower-court precedent stands regarding that point.
The Coleman decision asserted that Congress may determine whether the states have ratified in a "reasonable" time or whether the amendment is "no longer responsive to the conception which inspired it." Congress therefore could determine that the time period since the ERA went to the states for ratification in 1972 is "reasonable" and "contemporaneous" (particularly in light of the fact that it deemed the Madison Amendment's 203 years to be so), and it could decide that the ERA remains "responsive to the conception which inspired it" (indisputably so, since the fact that women's equal rights are not constitutionally affirmed will remain unchanged until the Constitution is amended or interpreted to establish unequivocally that women and men have equal rights).
Therefore, under the principles of Dillon and Coleman, and based on the fact that Congress voted to extend the ERA time limit and to accept the 203-year-long ratification period of the Madison Amendment as sufficiently "contemporaneous," it is likely that Congress has the power to legislatively adjust or remove the time limit constraint on the ERA if it chooses, to determine whether or not state ratifications which occur after the expiration of a time limit in a proposing clause are valid, and to promulgate the ERA after the 38th state ratifies.
Why do women need the Equal Rights Amendment?
The fourteenth amendment of the United States Constitution grants c...