General Discussion

However, the version of the ERA that Congress passed included, in its preamble, an arbitrary seven-year time limit for ratification. While time limits have become common in proposed amendments since Prohibition, the ERA’s time limit was importantly not included in the text of the version that all states voted to ratify. This distinction is one element of today’s legal and political challenges to the ERA. While there are scholars who disagree, many pro-equality advocates claim that time limits on the ratification process are inherently unconstitutional, as they are not included in Article 5, and thus, the founders chose not to limit the length of the ratification period.

One year following the ERA’s passage in Congress, 30 states had ratified it. However, momentum slowed as the anti-ERA movement ramped up in the latter part of the decade. After nationwide mobilization of hundreds of thousands of voters, Congress voted by simple majority to extend the original seven-year deadline by three years in 1978. However, the three-year limit did not allow sufficient time to oust key anti-ERA state senators because Senate terms in most states were at least four years. So, in 1982, the ERA fell three states short of ratification. Failure to reach the necessary 38 states in the 1970s was due to an anti-ERA campaign that dealt a significant blow to the amendment’s bipartisan nature.