A repost from last summer, I posted Aug. 19, 2024.
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This was the headline for MS Magazine's article published Aug. 15, 2024.
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Congress passed the 19th amendment (The ratification required 36 of the 48 states to vote for it as a constitutional amendment!)
These things were on my Facebook feed in the morning of Aug. 18, and one a memory of a post that I'd shared many times before. Here's what Aug, 18 should be remembered for.
"...in 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, giving women the right to vote. The first national constitutional amendment had been proposed in Congress in 1878, and in every Congress session after that. Finally, in 1919, it narrowly passed both houses of Congress and was sent to the states to be ratified. Most Southern states opposed the amendment, and on August 18, 1920, it all came down to Tennessee. The pro-amendment faction wore yellow roses in their lapels, and the "anti" faction wore red American Beauty roses. It was a close battle and the state legislature was tied 48 to 48. The decision came down to one vote: that of 24-year-old Harry Burn, the youngest state legislator. He had been expected to vote against it, but he had in his pocket a note from his mother, which read: "Dear Son: Hurrah, and vote for suffrage! Don't keep them in doubt. I noticed some of the speeches against. They were bitter. I have been watching to see how you stood, but have not noticed anything yet. Don't forget to be a good boy and help Mrs. Catt put the 'rat' in ratification. Your Mother." He voted in favor of the amendment.
The Nineteenth Amendment's adoption was certified on August 26, 1920.
Following that amendment where women's right to vote was legalized, it was found to have
"...failed to fully enfranchise African American, Asian American, Hispanic American, and Native American women. Shortly after the amendment's adoption, Alice Paul and the National Woman's Party began work on the Equal Rights Amendment, which they believed was a necessary additional step towards equality. (Wikipedia)
The MS article in 2024 starts with these words:
At the annual meeting of the American Bar Association in Chicago on Aug. 6, the association’s House of Delegates adopted a resolution declaring the Equal Rights Amendment fully ratified as the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The ABA resolution urged full implementation of the ERA by the legal community and all federal, state, local, territorial and tribal governments. The ABA has a membership of 400,000 lawyers.
“This is BIG news,” said U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a leading ERA advocate. “The leading association for legal minds just endorsed our position that the Equal Rights Amendment has satisfied every constitutional requirement and called on the entire legal community to support certifying and publishing the ERA as our 28th Amendment.”
So it's now in the hands of the law makers who are mostly lawyers. The MS article shows the places it has traveled through legal law making channels.
(This next sentence shows the hopefulness of last August.) Let's hope when Kamala Harris is elected President, there will be a push to finally see the ERA recognized!
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Additions as of today:
Note: Here are some details about President's Biden's statement on the ERA and the path of the ERA:
In one of his final acts before leaving office, former President Joe Biden issued a statement asserting that the Equal Rights Amendment should be considered part of the Constitution.
The ERA — which would add a 28th amendment to the Constitution saying, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex” — has now amassed more than a century of history, often reflecting the culture of the moment.
It was first proposed in 1923 following the success of the women’s suffrage movement and was revived in the 1970s with the rise of the women’s rights movement. In 1972, it passed a two-thirds majority of Congress, but then faltered on the other requirement for becoming enshrined in the Constitution — ratification by three-quarters of the states.
It arguably reached that threshold — ratification by 38 states — in 2020, but that was decades after a congressionally set 1982 deadline had passed. In recent years, the ERA has taken on urgency from both supporters and opponents for its potential to impact abortion rights.
In his Jan. 17 statement, Biden said, “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.”
This caused confusion on social media, with some understanding it to mean that the ERA had been officially added to the Constitution, and it prompted one reader to ask us, “Is this real?”
Yes, the statement from Biden is real. But it has no practical effect.
It’s easy to think that the statement — which says, “I agree with the [American Bar Association] and with leading legal constitutional scholars that the Equal Rights Amendment has become part of our Constitution” — could mean that some action would be taken to establish the amendment as part of the Constitution. But the president doesn’t have the authority to do that.
In fact, Article V of the Constitution — which lays out the amendment process — doesn’t assign any role to the president, legal experts explained to us.
Source: "What does Biden's ERA Statement Mean?" Fact Check DOT org, Jan. 31 2025
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