Equal Rights Amendment

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was a proposed amendment to the United States Constitution which would have guaranteed equal rights under law for Americans regardless of gender.

Extension of ratification deadline

In 1978—as the 1979 deadline approached—the 95th Congress adopted House Joint Resolution No. 638, by Representative Elizabeth Holtzman of New York, which purported to extend the ERA's ratification deadline to June 30, 1982 (Volume 92, United States Statutes At Large, page 3799).

Related Topics:
95th Congress - Elizabeth Holtzman - New York - June 30 - 1982

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On December 23, 1981, a United States District Court ruled, in the case of State of Idaho, et al. v. Freeman, et al. (529 F. Supp. 1107; judgment stayed January 25, 1982), that the ERA's deadline extension was unconstitutional and, further, that a state legislature may indeed rescind a prior ratification of a proposed amendment to the Federal Constitution. However, when the case was then appealed up to the United States Supreme Court, the Justices dismissed it as "moot" on October 4, 1982, (459 U.S. 809) on the technicality that the revised ratification deadline of June 30, 1982, had already passed. Because the nation's highest Court did not issue an opinion on the direct substance of whether the deadline extension was—or was not—valid, the question of the extension's validity remains officially unanswered by the Federal judiciary.

Related Topics:
December 23 - 1981 - January 25 - 1982 - Unconstitutional - United States Supreme Court - Moot - October 4 - June 30

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No additional states ratified the ERA during that extra period of slightly more than three years. In fact, the only occurrence favorable to the ERA between the original deadline of March 22, 1979, and the revised June 30, 1982, expiration date was—as noted earlier—its approval by the Florida House of Representatives on June 21, 1982. Not long afterward, that ratifying resolution was defeated in the Florida Senate by a vote of 16 yeas and 22 nays.

Related Topics:
March 22 - 1979 - June 30 - 1982 - June 21

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