Feminist leader Gloria Steinem has died at age 92. One thing that will not get the attention it deserves is her appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show on Jan. 14, 1986. Asked about the status of the Equal Rights Amendment, she explained that “because it was not ratified in the nine years allotted to it, it now has to start the process over again and be passed by the House and the Senate and go through all of the states’ ratification process.” She was right.
The Constitution provides that two-thirds of Congress can propose a constitutional amendment and three-fourths of the states (38 today) must ratify it. Congress proposed the ERA on March 22, 1972, with a seven-year ratification deadline. The same measure, without a deadline, failed in the Senate two years earlier, and Rep. Martha Griffiths (D-MI), the ERA’s primary sponsor, added the deadline to increase support.
