Requiring the House of Representatives to take any legislative action necessary to verify the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment as part of the Constitution when the legislatures of an additional three States ratify the Equal Rights Amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I rise before you today in strong support of the recent actions taken by the Illinois state legislature regarding the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), a proposed amendment to the Constitution which would unequivocally guarantee equal gender rights under the law. As many of my colleagues are certainly aware, the Illinois State Assembly recently voted on and passed the ERA, clearing the way for their counterparts in the Senate to consider this crucial legislation at the conclusion of their current recess. If Illinois' State Senate agrees to ratify the ERA, then only two more state ratifications will be necessary for this long overdue amendment to be added to our Constitution.

Some people have argued that the addition of an ERA amendment to the Constitution would simply be a change in semantics and nothing more. I strongly disagree. Presently, on average, women receive only 76 percent of the pay that men receive for comparable full time positions. Inequities such as these are inexcusable; they are disastrously damaging not just to women, but also to their families. Through the ratification of an Equal Rights Amendment, women would have an expanded legal basis to call for equal compensation for equal work.

Although the Equal Rights Amendment may have faded from the public spotlight at times, the movement to include women in the Constitution never died, and it is growing vigorously once again. Women had to wait until 1920 to be granted the right to vote under the Constitution. While this was certainly a monumental development, it has not produced full gender equality. The 14th Amendment, granting ``equal protection of the laws,'' did not, and still does not, fully protect women from damaging gender discrimination. Only an Equal Rights Amendment would ensure the Constitutionally guaranteed full equality that women deserve.

The ERA was originally passed by Congress in 1972, along with a seven-year time limit for ratification. In 1979, Congress extended the time limit for three more years, leaving the deadline at 1982. Within a decade of the initial 1972 passage, the amendment had been ratified by 35 states, three short of the necessary 38. For many years after that, the ERA was, for technical reasons, generally considered ``dead.'' However, legal analyses indicate that with just three more state ratifications, the ERA may in fact meet the requirements to be added to the Constitution. As has been verified by several legal experts, the fact that the time limit appears in the proposing clause rather than the text of the legislation leaves this deadline open to adjustment. When Congress chose to extend the deadline in 1979, a precedent was set; subsequent sessions of Congress may adjust time limits placed in proposing clauses by their predecessors. These adjustments may include extensions of time, reductions, or elimination of the deadline altogether.

It is therefore possible for current or future sessions of Congress to eliminate the deadline originally placed on ratification of the ERA, thus allowing the amendment to be added to the Constitution once it is ratified by three more states. This ``three state strategy'' is a very real possibility, and I have introduced legislation into the House of Representatives, H. Res. 38, to ensure that action will be immediately considered by Congress once three more state legislatures ratify the