The Amendment That's Already Been Ratified — So Why Isn't It Law?

Here's a constitutional puzzle that would stump most Americans: What if an amendment to the U.S. Constitution had already cleared every single legal hurdle — passed by Congress, ratified by 38 states, fully compliant with Article V — but still wasn't the law of the land? You'd probably assume that's impossible. Welcome to the Equal Rights Amendment.

The ERA says this, in its entirety: "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." Twenty-four words. Congress passed it with the required two-thirds supermajority in 1972. Thirty-eight states ratified it, with Virginia crossing the finish line on January 27, 2020. Every box on the Article V checklist: checked.

The roadblock is a deadline — specifically, a seven-year window that Congress wrote into the ERA’s preamble -- not into the amendment itself. Opponents say that deadline expired. ERA proponents — including Harvard Law's Laurence Tribe and UC Berkeley Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky — say the deadline has no constitutional basis whatsoever. The Constitution sets no ratification deadlines. The 27th Amendment took 203 years to ratify. Nobody objected.

What the ERA needs now is a Congressional Joint Resolution affirming it as the 28th Amendment and directing the Archivist to publish it. Once Congress acts, Tribe and Chemerinsky agree, no president, no court — including the current Supreme Court — could credibly deny its status. The legal case is airtight. The political will is what's missing. That's the specific gap Driving the Vote for Equality exists to close

1. The Amendment That's Already Been Ratified — So Why Isn't It Law?

2. No, the Constitution Does Not Guarantee Women Equal Rights. Here's the Proof.

3. The Scare Tactics Were Wrong in 1972. They're Still Wrong.

4. 203 Years, One College Student, and Why the ERA's 'Deadline' Is a Myth

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