Page 13 - Delaware Lawyer - Winter 2019

equal-rights provision in their state consti- tutions.18 In January 2019, the Delaware legislature voted to add an equal-rights provision to the Delaware Bill of Rights.
The approaching 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment in August 2020, the recent exposure of sexual abuse by numerous powerful men and the #MeToo movement19 have all contributed to a resurgence of interest in the passage of a federal ERA.
The current path for adoption of the ERA is based on the experience associated with the 27th Amendment, which sets the effective date of salary increases for mem- bers of Congress to the term following their approval. The proposal that became the 27th Amendment passed the Con- gress in 1789 along with 11 other pro- posed constitutional amendments — the last 10 of which were ratified by the states in 1791, becoming the Bill of Rights. No deadline for passage of any of the amend- ments was imposed. The amendment lan- guished more than two centuries when an
In 1973, Delaware became the third state
to ratify the ERA but did not add equal-rights protection to its state constitution.
earnest effort to achieve ratification was launched in the 20th century. In 1992, ratification by the 38th state was achieved. On May 20, 1992, Congress declared the ratification to be legal and the amend- ment to be part of the Constitution.
Ratification of the ERA stood at 35 states for 40 years — three states shy of the required 38 (ignoring the five states that rescinded their ratification). Then the state of Nevada ratified it in March 2017, and Illinois followed in May 2018. There was an effort to make Virginia the 38th state when its 400th General Assem- bly convened in January 2019.20 But on January 22, 2019, the Virginia GOP-led House failed to ratify the ERA. Support- ers say the fight is not over.21 Should 38 be achieved, an effort in Congress to accept the vote and certify the amendment will likely be launched.
Employment
President John F. Kennedy came into office in January 1961. He proposed leg- islation focused on improving civil rights for all Americans — his New Frontier pro- gram. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 (EPA) was passed out of “concern for the weaker bargaining position of women” to protect them from “an ancient but outmoded belief that a man, because of his role in
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