Sen. Dick Durbin says a resolution to remove a ratification deadline that passed four decades ago from the Equal Rights Amendment will get hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Illinois Democrat chairs the committee. He says it’s time for the 1972 amendment to be in the Constitution.
Thirty-five states ratified ERA before the 1982 deadline. It takes 38 to change the Constitution. Three more, including Illinois, ratified it in the last six years. Congress changed the deadline before, when ratification stalled at 35 states. Removing the deadline could be seen as the same kind of act. Durbin believes it won’t be a problem.
Even if the deadline is removed retroactively, there may be legal challenges based on whether five states that rescinded ratification can actually do that. Some states tried to rescind ratifications of the 14th Amendment. Among other things, it guaranteed that former slaves had citizenship and all the rights that come with it.
Congress declared the recissions invalid. The Supreme Court has never taken up the question. Others who were with Durbin at a news conference this morning are worried about Supreme Court decisions that would end women’s rights to contraception and deciding whom to marry.