[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 150 (Wednesday, September 25, 2024)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6420-S6421]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           CONSTITUTION WEEK

  Mr. CARDIN. Madam President, I rise in recognition of Constitution 
Week, recognized from September 17 through September 23.
  Since 1956, Congress has recognized an annual Constitution Week in 
recognition of the signing of the U.S. Constitution in Philadelphia on 
September 17, 1787. We also recognize Constitution Day and Citizenship 
Day on September 17, providing an opportunity for us to reflect upon 
and to learn about our Nation's founding document.
  This annual recognition is of critical importance. Our Constitution 
informs our system of governance, creates individual rights and 
liberties, and expresses our collective values. Throughout my time in 
office, I have prioritized working to improve the quality of U.S. 
history and civics education throughout our Nation. Educating current 
and future generations of Americans about our Constitution is a 
critical piece of this.
  While the flaws and omissions inherent in the original Constitution 
are widely recognized, one of its most important features is that it 
was designed to remain adaptable to future generations of Americans. 
Virginia delegate Edmund Randolph, one of the drafters, stated that the 
intention was to ``insert essential principles only, lest the 
operations of government should be clogged by rendering those 
provisions permanent and unalterable, which ought to be accommodated to 
times and events.''
  Of course, article V of our Constitution also lays out an explicit 
amendment process. Amendments can be made to our Constitution when 
proposed by a two-thirds vote of both the House and Senate and ratified 
by three-fourths of the State legislatures, which equates to 38 States.
  Today, we are in the unprecedented situation in which a 
constitutional amendment ratified by the required 38 States has not 
been formally recognized as a part of our Constitution. In 2020, 
Virginia became the 38th and final required State to ratify the Equal 
Rights Amendment, which was proposed and sent to the States after 
passage by broad bipartisan majorities in 1972.
  The ERA would constitutionally protect the equality of rights under 
the law, regardless of sex. The main clause of the amendment simply 
states, ``Equality of rights under the law shall not be abridged by the 
United States or by any state on account of sex.''
  Despite what many Americans believe, the only right explicitly 
guaranteed regardless of sex in the U.S. Constitution is the 19th 
Amendment right to vote. The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th 
Amendment has been invoked successfully in sex discrimination cases, 
but the outcomes of these challenges have been inconsistent. The 
current Supreme Court's approach to the Constitution highlights the 
need for the ERA, given the apparent belief by some Justices that the 
Equal Protection Clause should be frozen in time in 1868, casting in 
doubt those precedents currently holding that the Equal Protection 
Clause applies to sex discrimination.
  Our lack of an explicit provision places us out of line with the rest 
of the world. Eighty-five percent of countries have an explicit 
prohibition against governmental discrimination on the basis of sex.
  The United States is the only industrialized democracy that does not 
include an explicit provision in its Constitution, a marker that I take 
seriously as the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. On 
August 6 of 2024, the American Bar Association, which is the leading 
legal association in our Nation, voted overwhelmingly to recognize the 
ERA as the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Resolution 601 
urges government on all levels to implement the ERA now.
  This important affirmation by our Nation's leading association of 
lawyers is in line with the position taken by many members of this 
body. In a vote on April 27, 2024, a bipartisan majority of U.S. 
Senators voted to affirm the validity of the Equal Rights Amendment as 
our 28th Amendment to the Constitution and to explicitly remove the 
deadline that Congress included in the preamble of the resolution 
proposing the ERA to the States.
  In both 2020 and 2021, the House of Representatives passed a similar 
joint resolution to explicitly remove this arbitrary deadline for 
adoption of this critical constitutional amendment.
  It is important that we pass this S.J. Res. 4, which I have been 
pleased to lead on a bipartisan basis with Senator Lisa Murkowski of 
Alaska, to remove any ambiguity and to make it clear beyond a doubt 
that the ERA is a valid part of our Constitution. The passage of this 
resolution is long overdue. However, the fact remains that the Equal 
Rights Amendment has already fulfilled all of the requirements laid out 
in article V and should be recognized--today--as our 28th Amendment.
  Women still face serious challenges ``on account of sex,'' and our 
existing legal framework does not always provide a sufficient remedy.
  As the 28th Amendment, the ERA would serve as a new tool--for 
Congress, for Federal Agencies, and the courts--to advance equality in 
the fields of workforce and pay, pregnancy discrimination, sexual 
harassment and violence, reproductive autonomy, and protections for 
LGBTQ+ individuals.
  For example, we recently recognized 30 years since the passage of the 
Violence Against Women Act, which President Biden described as his 
``proudest legislative achievement.'' Despite all of the successful 
progress through VAWA,

[[Page S6421]]

a U.S. Supreme Court decision invalidated one of its key elements: the 
creation of a private right of action to allow survivors of sexual 
assault, domestic violence, and child abuse to sue for civil damages 
from their perpetrators. The Court struck down this democratically 
approved legislation on the grounds that it was outside of Congress's 
power.
  It stymied the ability of our democratically elected branches to 
address the critical problem of gender-based violence. The ERA would 
serve as an explicit constitutional backstop for legislation like 
VAWA's private right of action that is intended to address problems of 
inequality, as well as serving as a tool in the courts.
  Our Constitution is a reflection of our values, and no value is more 
American than equality. I call for the passage of S.J. Res. 4. I also 
express my strong belief that the ERA has fulfilled the requirements of 
article V and should be recognized as such.

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