Since not enough states ratified the Equal Rights Amendment before its deadline, said the talk-show guest in January 1986, “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.” The show was Oprah, and the guest was feminist leader Gloria Steinem.
When Congress proposed the Equal Rights Amendment in March 1972, it included a seven-year ratification deadline, which everyone knew was valid and binding. In a 1977 report for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, then-Professor Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that the ERA could become part of the Constitution only if ratification was “completed by 1979.”
Once again, Democrats are pushing to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. They’re beating a dead horse. Over the years, more than 1,100 resolutions proposing an Equal Rights Amendment have been introduced in Congress. Only one House Joint Resolution 208, proposed in 1972 received the two-thirds support needed to be sent to the states. That resolution had a seven-year deadline for ratification.
When Congress proposed the Equal Rights Amendment in March 1972, it included a seven-year ratification deadline, which everyone knew was valid and binding.