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Sunday, Oct. 15, 1978 Page 15 Huron Daily Plainsman By TENA ANDERSEN Associated Press Writer Only three states still need to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, but in South Dakota arguments are heating up over the idea that the state's ratification of the proposed constitutional amendment will be expiring, ERA supporters maintain there is no problem and their opponents are just grabbing at straws to keep the controversy alive. Kitty Worthman, Pierre, head of the STOP ERA movement in South Dakota, said the wording used in many states will make their ratification resolutions void after the original ERA deadline runs out next spring. Congress has since extended the time for ratification to approve the amendment. And Congress has refused to allow the states to rescind their approval of the ERA. The wording of South Dakota's resolution ap parently was copied from the federal legislation stating that both houses of Congress had passed the resolution by March, 22, 1972. The federal wording con tinued: ‘‘Be it resolved by the Senate and House , assembled, that the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Con stitution which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several states within seven years from the date of its submission by Congress.” Then follows the wording of the ERA and South Dakota’s resolution to ratify it. Mrs. Werthman said the wording of the resolution means South Dakota’s action is null and void after March 22, 1979. With the newly approved extension, Mrs. Werthman said the states which used the federal wording will have to re-ratify the amendment, something she said would be nearly impossible to do. But Linda Lea M. Miller, Rapid City attorney and former legislator, said there is no time limit written into South Dakota’s ratification. “That's just the same wording Congress used. It’s in the preamble and it’s not part of what will go into the wor ding in the Constitution,’’ she said. “We were not ratifying the Congressional seven-year limit. We ratified the proposed amendment,” she said. Ms. Miller, who was one of the sponsors of the resolution in 1973, said lawmakers did not intend to set a time limit on the state’s approval of the amendment when they ratified it. “Whenever something is to terminate on a certain date we've been very careful and very specific on it,’’ she said. Ms. Miller predicted that anti-ERA forces will organize nationally to challenge the ratification resolutions on the basis that they run out in 1979. “I’m sure there will be a lawsuit filed somewhere,” she said. “I question how you'd ever get that into court,’’ she went on. “It was a joint resolution not a law,”
Newspaper Details
Huron Daily Plainsman
Huron, South Dakota, US
Sun, Oct 15, 1978
Page 15
Full Page
Clipped by
Gerald G.
