Thomas Jipping
Sensible Americans consider the Equal Rights Amendment a long-dead relic, but its supporters, incredibly, are still trying to revive it.
Congress proposed the ERA in March 1972, and it expired when its ratification deadline passed with insufficient state support. No one likes to lose, but ERA advocates, who appeared to have advanced through the stages of grief to acceptance, have regressed to the first one: denial. They just won’t take “dead” for an answer.
In their latest gambit, they want President Joe Biden to put the 1972 ERA in the Constitution by ordering the Archivist of the United States to say it is so. The Archivist has already refused and this is another embarrassing swing-and-a-miss.
Rep. Martha Griffiths (D-Mich.) introduced House Joint Resolution 208 in 1971 to propose this constitutional amendment: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” With the support of women’s groups, Griffiths included a seven-year ratification deadline to increase congressional support, while predicting that the states would ratify the ERA within two years.
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She was wrong. By March 1979, 35 states had ratified the 1972 ERA, but five of them had rescinded their approval. No new states joined, even after Congress extended the deadline until June 1982. The deadline was binding, and ERA advocates came up short.
The 1972 ERA is not on life support, hibernating or in suspended animation. Everyone knew that the deadline was valid and binding and that the 1972 ERA expired when that deadline passed without ratification by three-fourths of the states. When feminist leader Gloria Steinem appeared on “The Oprah Winfrey Show” in January 1986, she explained that “it now has to start the process over again… be passed by the House and Senate and go through all of the states’ ratification process.” Steinem was right. » Read More
https://www.heritage.org/the-constitution/commentary/equal-rights-amendment-advocates-should-take-dead-answer