Removing the Deadline for the Ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment

Floor Speech

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 233, I call up the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 17) removing the deadline for the ratification of the equal rights amendment, and ask for its immediate consideration.

The Clerk read the title of the joint resolution.

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Mr. NADLER. Res. 17.

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Madam Speaker, H.J. Res. 17 is long-overdue legislation to ensure that the equal rights amendment can finally become the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution. The House passed identical legislation last Congress on a bipartisan basis, and I hope it will do so again today.

Madam Speaker, in 1923, Alice Paul first introduced an amendment to the Constitution to guarantee full equal protection for women. The text of the amendment is simple and clear: ``Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.''

That amendment passed with overwhelming bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate in 1972.

Unfortunately, it fell just short of being ratified by the requisite number of States before the arbitrary deadline imposed by Congress ran out in 1982. In the 40 years since, we have made great strides in this country to ensure equality. Women have secured the right to vote, protection against workplace discrimination, and through case law decided under the 14th Amendment, many other critical protections denied them for too long on the basis of sex.

Without the ERA, millions of women have still had to march in support of their rights, their healthcare, their reproductive freedom and abortion access, and their dignity as equal citizens. Through the Me Too movement, we have had long-overdue, and sometimes painful, conversations about the violence and harassment that women and others experience--whether in the workplace, at homes, or in schools and universities.

But still, to this day, the Constitution does not explicitly recognize and guarantee that no one can be denied equal protection of the laws on the basis of sex. The ERA would enshrine those principles and take the final, critical step of ensuring that laws disadvantaging women and gender minorities are subject to the most rigorous form of scrutiny.

Last year, Virginia became the 38th and last necessary State to ratify the ERA, and, today, in passing H.J. Res. 17, we will be one step closer to enshrining it into law. This resolution removes a previous deadline Congress set in the amendment's proposing clause for ratifying the ERA, and will, therefore, ensure that recent ratifications by Nevada, Illinois, and Virginia are given full effect.

We are on the brink of making history, and no deadline should stand in the way. The Constitution itself places no deadlines on the process for ratifying amendments. Congress, just as clearly, has the authority to extend or remove any deadlines that it previously chose to set in the first place.

The recent ruling by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia refusing to recognize the recent State ratifications makes it even more imperative that Congress act now in removing this deadline. We must make it absolutely clear that Congress does not want language put in the proposing clause of a resolution 40 years ago to stand in the way of full equality now.

Madam Speaker, I thank Representative Speier for introducing this resolution, which takes that important step. This resolution will ensure, at long last, that the equal rights amendment can take its rightful place as part of our Nation's Constitution.

Madam Speaker, I urge all Members to support it, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, the gentlewoman errs, the deadline for ratification is not part of the amendment, it is part of the resolution proposing the amendment. And if Congress can propose a deadline, it can revoke that proposal since it is not part of the amendment at all.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Speier).

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I am glad the gentleman recognizes that equality includes the right of each woman and man to make their own decision about their reproductive choices. There can be no equality of the sexes when one class of people is denied the ability to control their own bodies.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from Georgia (Mrs. McBath).

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen).

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. Cohen) that he may control that time.

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Chu).

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, every amendment since the 22nd, except for the 27th, has had a deadline for ratification inserted in the resolution. But if you look at the Constitution, Madam Speaker, you won't find the deadline. That is because the deadline is part of the congressional resolution proposing the amendment, not part of the amendment itself.

What Congress can propose, Congress can alter, which is all we are proposing to do today.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi).

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Georgia (Mrs. McBath) to control the balance of my time.

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Cicilline).

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Garcia).

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Massachusetts (Mrs. Trahan).

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Mrs. Lawrence).

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Wasserman Schultz).

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Madam Speaker, today, we confront one of America's lingering legacies of discrimination.

At America's founding, women were intentionally left out of the Constitution and, as second-class citizens, we did not have the right to vote or own property.

Today, we still receive less pay for the same work, and we face actual or imminent threats of violence and harassment daily.

But the equal rights amendment rejects that.

After over a century, the ERA is on the cusp of ratification, and we finally have a President who will make this long overdue provision of our Constitution a reality.

Women's rights should not depend on which party is in power. These basic fundamental rights must be guaranteed. We must secure equality for women under the law, in the Constitution, and in our daily lives.

If we want to hand a more perfect union over to our daughters--and I have two--this Women's History Month, let's seize the moment and end sex discrimination once and for all.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on this resolution to remove the arbitrary and outdated deadline for ratifying the ERA.

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. DeLauro).

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, we are prepared to close.

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, Alice Paul's equal rights amendment was introduced in both Houses of Congress way back in 1923. But 96 years later, the United States Constitution still does not explicitly declare that women have equal rights under the law.

We are the only western democracy without such a clause in its Constitution. Today, we have an opportunity to rectify that glaring omission.

The arbitrary deadline for ratification that Congress imposed, and later extended, can be just as easily removed, and that is all this legislation does. It can be just as easily removed, because it is not part of the amendment, as some of our Republican friends said.

Every amendment since the 22nd Amendment, except for the 27th, has had such a clause. And if you look at the text of the Constitution, it is not there. That is because the deadline is part of the resolution proposing the constitutional amendment, not part of the constitutional amendment. If Congress can establish a deadline by resolution, it can certainly, by resolution, extend or change the deadline. That is all this resolution does.

Adopting the ERA would bring our country closer to truly fulfilling values of inclusion and equal opportunity for all people. Adopting this legislation would help make this a reality.

I urge all Members to support this resolution.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON LEE asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Madam Speaker, we have just been engaged in presenting to the public the Violence Against Women Act. But all of it stands on the shoulders of the equal rights amendment, which has been long overdue.

What an amazing journey that this legislation has taken, and how sad it is to acknowledge that we are one of only a few nations that does not have an equal rights amendment in its constitution.

I remember going to Afghanistan and working with the women of Afghanistan to include the rights of women in their Constitution. I want to say that again: To include the rights of women in their Constitution.

So let me speak clearly to vital points of this resolution. This is not an abortion bill. However, we realize that the right to choose is embedded in the Constitution in the Ninth Amendment. But this is not that.

It is a bill that says that women have a right, as Alice Paul said so many years ago, to be able to have rights of equality under this flag, under this Constitution. Are we suggesting that that should not be?

In addition, let it be very clear that any court decision that was issued, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, that is, the Commonwealth of Virginia v. Ferriero, we can explain that case, because the Court said the only authority to extend the deadline was Congress, and here we are. Congress is now intending to extend that deadline.

Nothing in the Constitution prohibits that. It is not embedded in the amendment. And by Article V, we are able to deal with deadlines. Deadlines are a simple process of statutory authority, and that is what we are doing today.

I don't think my friends on the other side of the aisle want to leave without recognizing the fact that women make 80 cents for every $1 a man earns, and that they are treated unfairly in the workplace.

If you want equal dignity, if you want the rights of women to be promoted, vote for the ERA.

Madam Speaker, I strongly support H.J. Res. 17. H.J. Res. 17, introduced by Representative Jackie Speier with 209 co-sponsors, would take a critical step towards ensuring that the Equal Rights Amendment, or ``ERA'', becomes part of the Constitution.

The resolution provides that notwithstanding the ratification deadline of 1979 that Congress set for the ERA and later extended to 1982, the ERA ``shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution whenever ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States.''

The purpose of the ERA is simple and fundamental: It ensures that everyone is treated equally under the law, regardless of sex or gender. Almost one hundred years ago, Alice Paul, who helped lead the campaign to secure women's right to vote, proposed the first version of the ERA.

She and her fellow suffragists knew that if women were to achieve true equality, our Nation's founding document needed to be amended to reflect that core principle. Nearly a century later, it is long past time to make that dream a reality.

In 1971 and 1972, the House and Senate, respectively, passed the ERA by well more than the constitutionally-mandated two-thirds majority in each chamber.

It contained these simple words: ``Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.'' In the years that quickly followed, dozens of States ratified the ERA through their legislatures.

By the end of the 1970s, the ERA was just a few States short of full ratification. But then progress slowed, and the deadline Congress had set for ratification passed. A well-organized counter-movement scared the American people into thinking that a guarantee of equality would somehow harm women who stay at home to raise their children or would erode American families. What had started as a matter of broad consensus became another divisive wedge in the culture wars.

Today we know better. We know that in the year 2021, it is unacceptable that women still make only 80 cents for every dollar men earn. We know that when women are treated with equal dignity and respect in the workplace, in the home, by our institutions of government, and in our society at large, all of the American people stand to benefit. And we know that a simple but fundamental guarantee of equality should be welcomed rather than feared.

Thankfully, the momentum for ERA ratification has picked back up. Nevada ratified the ERA in 2017, and Illinois followed suit the next year. Then, in January 2020, Virginia made history and became the 38th State to pass a resolution ratifying the ERA. So long as these last three ratifications are valid, the ERA will become law.

Unfortunately, a federal district court ruled two weeks ago that these states were too late because the ratification deadline that Congress set had expired already in 1982.

Importantly, that court affirmed that Congress has the power to set ratifications deadlines, as Article V of the Constitution, which governs the constitutional amendment process, does not itself provide for ratification deadlines of any kind. Of course, the power to set deadlines necessarily includes the power to remove those deadlines.

By removing the ratification deadline that Congress set previously, H.J. Res. 17 ensures that the recent ratifications by Nevada, Illinois, and Virginia are counted and that the ERA becomes part of our Constitution.

We are on the verge of a breakthrough for equality in this country, despite all the obstacles in our current political and social climate. This resolution will ensure that no deadline stands in the way. Therefore, I strongly support H.J. Res. 17 and urge its passage by the House.

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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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