CLEP US History II

Answer: A - Suffragist Alice Paul wrote the Equal Rights Amendment in 1923, and it failed to pass both houses of Congress until 1972. Paul wrote the amendment in 1923 because she believed the 19th Amendment (ratified three years earlier) only addressed issues of gender-based voter inequality, not all possible types of gender inequality. The bill was reintroduced in every congressional session from 1923 to 1970, but failed. Then in 1970, the National Organization for Women (NOW) began picketing outside Congress to promote the bill. In 1972, it passed both houses of Congress and was sent to the states for ratification. The bill died with the states in 1982, when its 10-year ratification time limit expired without the requisite number of states endorsing the legislation. After it failed, legislators started all over again, reintroducing it in Congress each year.