President Biden declared the ERA passed. Now, a technical hurdle must be removed | Opinion

On Friday, January 17th, the President declared, “It is long past time to recognize the will of the American people. In keeping with my oath and duty to Constitution and country, I affirm what I believe and what three-fourths of the states have ratified: the 28th Amendment is the law of the land, guaranteeing all Americans equal rights and protections under the law regardless of their sex.”

To those who have worked for over 100 years for constitutional equality, this declaration is cause for celebration. Now, the National Archivist must certify and publish the Equal Rights Amendment.

For more than six decades, I have worked to make the Equal Rights Amendment part of the United States Constitution. Previously living in Iowa, Tennessee, Louisiana and other states, I personally experienced sex discrimination: couldn’t get a credit card in my own name; excluded from jury service; paid three-fourths of wages earned by men for the same job.

Here’s a simple idea — and an old one: American women and men deserve equal rights under the Constitution. In 1776, Abigail Adams, wife of future president, John Adams, wrote to her husband, who was participating in the Constitutional Convention: “Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could. If particular care and attention is not paid to the Ladies we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any Laws in which we have no voice, or Representation.”

But John ignored Abigail’s plea and left women out of the U.S Constitution.

Amending the Constitution is pretty simple: two-thirds of both chambers of Congress propose an amendment, then three-fourths of state legislatures must ratify it. That’s it. No mention of a deadline. In fact, the 27th Amendment (dealing with congressional pay raises) proposed by Congress in 1789 specified no deadline. Over 200 years later, the state legislatures finally ratified it — a period considered “sufficiently contemporaneous.”

The Equal Rights Amendment has its own long, complex history. Introduced in 1923, passed by Congress in 1972, it then went to the states for ratification. However, some wily legislators attached a seven-year deadline, later amended to 10 years. The time limit, passed by a joint resolution, appears only in the preamble, not in the ERA itself. Deadlines didn’t appear in amendments until the 20th century, beginning with Prohibition, and then were included sporadically.

Nevertheless, the time limit became an issue, decades after the 1982 deadline, when the last three of the needed 38 states ratified the amendment in 2017, 2018, and 2020.

Women today face a significant gender pay gap, loss of reproductive rights, pregnancy discrimination, violence , discrimination in sports and much more. Only a constitutional amendment can protect women and men from laws that discriminate on the basis of gender. Only a constitutional amendment can prevent legislators, the executive branch or the courts from changing, diluting or ignoring laws designed to protect women and men from sex discrimination.

President Biden has again expressed his continuing strong support for the ERA, although the National Archivist so far has refused to certify the amendment after ratification by the 38th state.

Section 3 of the ERA specifies that “this amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.” The idea was that the states would have two years to bring their laws into accordance with the ERA.

Meanwhile, the prominent law firm Winston and Strawn of Chicago is combing through laws on the books in North Carolina, Nevada, and other states, uncovering numerous laws that codify sex discrimination. State legislators must get busy bringing those laws into accord with the 28th Amendment, which will now legally be part of the Constitution.

We eagerly await the final act — publication of the 28th Amendment.