§21 —
On Gloria Steinem
Democrat
UNPUBLISHED
She was born in 1934, eleven years after Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman wrote the thing down 1. She died on Wednesday in New York, at 92, having worked on it until the end 2. In between: the Bunny piece in 1963, going in undercover to write what the job was actually like; Ms. in 1972, the first mass magazine to address women as something other than housewives; and the marches, for the amendment, for fifty years 2.
Virginia ratified on 15 January 2020, the thirty-eighth state, crossing the three-quarters the Constitution asks for 1. Under a 1984 law the Archivist of the United States issues the formal certification once three-quarters have ratified 1. That certification has not issued, and the office has said it will not issue one absent a federal court order 1. So the deadline argument may well be correct — that is a genuine question and the courts have leaned one way on it. What is not in dispute is the shape of the thing. One hundred and three years from the drafting. Six years since the thirty-eighth state. And the step that remains is not a vote, or a ruling, or a march. It is a signature on a form, and she did not live to see it.
Sources
- Drafted in 1923 by Alice Paul and Crystal Eastman; Virginia ratified on 15 January 2020 as the 38th state, crossing the three-quarters threshold; under a 1984 law the Archivist of the United States issues formal certification once three-quarters of states have ratified, and the office has said it will not certify absent a federal court order — Brennan Center for Justice, The Equal Rights Amendment, Explained ↑
- Gloria Steinem died in New York City on Wednesday at 92, having continued working for equality until the end; her career included the 1963 undercover Playboy Bunny exposé and the founding of Ms. magazine — CNN, 3 September 2026 ↑
Republican
THE DEADLINE
The procedural case is real and it deserves its strongest form, not a caricature, especially today. Congress attached a seven-year ratification deadline when it passed the amendment in March 1972, and extended it by three more years when the states fell short 1. That deadline expired in 1982, with 35 states ratified — three below the threshold 1.
The legal position rests on that. The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel concluded in 2020, and again in 2022, that the deadline Congress set is valid and enforceable, and that removing or extending it now would require fresh action by Congress or a ruling from the courts 2. District and circuit courts have affirmed the same 2. The National Archives has taken the position that the amendment cannot be certified, and that the office will not act ahead of a court 3. None of that is a judgment about whether women should have equal rights under the Constitution. It is an argument that a clock is a clock. It is also, at this point, the only argument left standing in the way.
Sources
- The ERA was drafted in 1923 and introduced in every session of Congress thereafter; passed by Congress in March 1972 with a seven-year ratification deadline; 30 states ratified within a year, 35 by 1977; Congress extended the deadline by three years and no further states ratified before it expired in 1982 — Brennan Center for Justice, The Equal Rights Amendment, Explained ↑
- The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel concluded in 2020 and again in 2022 that the congressionally set ratification deadline is valid and enforceable, and that extending or removing it requires new action by Congress or the courts; district and circuit courts have affirmed the deadline's validity — Congressional Research Service, The Equal Rights Amendment: Background and Recent Legal Developments ↑
- The National Archives' position on the ratification process and certification — National Archives, Statement on the Equal Rights Amendment Ratification Process ↑
“Gloria Steinem, ninety-two. I have the timeline and it's the shortest hard thing I've read all year. Drafted 1923. Passed Congress March 1972, with a seven-year clock. Thirty states inside a year, thirty-five by '77, the clock extended three years, and then nothing until Virginia became number thirty-eight in January of 2020. Under a 1984 law the Archivist certifies once three-quarters of the states have ratified. The certification has not issued. Sorry, one thing before you go. She was born five years after it was written and she died six years after the thirty-eighth state. Whatever you think of the deadline argument, that is a hundred and three years of one document, and the woman who spent her life on it never saw the last page of it filed.”— Lou
“She died Wednesday, ninety-two, in New York. Went undercover as a Bunny in '63 and wrote down what the job actually was, which nobody had bothered to do. And the amendment — the one she gave the better part of a century to — was written in 1923, passed Congress in '72, got its thirty-eighth state in 2020, and it's still not in the book. Not voted down. Not repealed. Just never published. A hundred and three years and the last thing standing between it and the Constitution is a signature nobody will put on it.”