Texas 2025 - 89th Regular

Texas House Bill HCR57 Compare Versions

Only one version of the bill is available at this time.

Old	New	Differences
1	1	89R12270 TBO-F
2	2	By: Lowe H.C.R. No. 57
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7	7	CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
8	8	WHEREAS, On March 22, 1972, the 92nd Congress of the United
9	9	States of America, during its 2nd Session, with the
10	10	constitutionally-specified vote of two-thirds of both houses
11	11	thereof, gave final approval to House Joint Resolution No. 208,
12	12	commonly referred to as the "Equal Rights Amendment" (ERA), to
13	13	propose that amendment to the Constitution of the United States,
14	14	pursuant to Article V of that Constitution; and
15	15	WHEREAS, The exact text of the 1972 proposal reads as
16	16	follows:
17	17	"ARTICLE __________
18	18	"SECTION 1. Equality of rights under the
19	19	law shall not be denied or abridged by the
20	20	United States or by any State on account of
21	21	sex.
22	22	"SEC. 2. The Congress shall have the power
23	23	to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the
24	24	provisions of this article.
25	25	"SEC. 3. This amendment shall take effect
26	26	two years after the date of ratification.";
27	27	and
28	28	WHEREAS, In offering that proposed federal constitutional
29	29	amendment to America's state lawmakers, the 92nd Congress chose a
30	30	deadline of seven years, or until March 22, 1979, for the
31	31	constitutionally-mandated ratification of the amendment by
32	32	three-fourths of the nation's state legislatures; and
33	33	WHEREAS, The authority of Congress to establish a
34	34	ratification deadline within which state legislators--or ratifying
35	35	conventions conducted within the states--must act upon a particular
36	36	proposed amendment to the federal Constitution was upheld by the
37	37	United States Supreme Court in the 1921 case of Dillon v. Gloss (256
38	38	U.S. 368); and
39	39	WHEREAS, In the form of Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 1,
40	40	62nd Texas Legislature, 2nd Called Session, on March 30, 1972,
41	41	Texas lawmakers responded by ratifying the proposed 1972 Equal
42	42	Rights Amendment to the federal Constitution, thus making the Texas
43	43	Legislature an "early ratifier" of the measure; and
44	44	WHEREAS, In its wording, Texas 1972 Senate Concurrent
45	45	Resolution No. 1 clearly references and alludes to the deadline of
46	46	seven years which the 92nd Congress had established for
47	47	ratification of the 1972 Equal Rights Amendment; and
48	48	WHEREAS, Quite belatedly, the legislatures of Nevada in 2017,
49	49	Illinois in 2018, and Virginia in 2020, adopted resolutions
50	50	purporting to "ratify" the 1972 ERA literally decades after the
51	51	proposal had expired from state legislative consideration; and
52	52	WHEREAS, With those three post-deadline "ratifications,"
53	53	there are persons who mistakenly assert that the 1972 ERA received
54	54	the approval of the legislatures of the necessary 38 of the 50
55	55	states and, therefore, that the 1972 ERA has allegedly been
56	56	incorporated into the United States Constitution as the document's
57	57	28th Amendment; and
58	58	WHEREAS, In the aftermath of the Virginia General Assembly's
59	59	2020 "ratification" of the 1972 ERA, the United States House of
60	60	Representatives has twice adopted joint resolutions (House Joint
61	61	Resolution No. 79 of the 116th Congress and House Joint Resolution
62	62	No. 17 of the 117th Congress) both of which sought to remove the
63	63	original deadline set by the 92nd Congress for ERA ratification;
64	64	neither of those two joint resolutions, however, were voted upon by
65	65	the United States Senate during the now-concluded 116th and 117th
66	66	Congresses; and
67	67	WHEREAS, On January 17, 2025, the 46th President of the
68	68	United States--no longer in office--issued an erroneous
69	69	proclamation to the effect that the 1972 ERA "has cleared all
70	70	necessary hurdles to be formally added to the Constitution as the
71	71	28th Amendment" and declared that "the Equal Rights Amendment has
72	72	become part of our Constitution" and that action was in direct
73	73	contravention of the United States Supreme Court's 1798 decision in
74	74	the case of Hollingsworth v. Virginia (3 U.S. [3 Dall.] 378 [1798])
75	75	in which it was ruled that presidents play no official role at any
76	76	stage of the federal constitutional amendment process; and
77	77	WHEREAS, It is rather unfair for anyone to arbitrarily assume
78	78	that a state legislature which ratified the Equal Rights Amendment
79	79	back in the 1970s--with the understanding in those days that the
80	80	1972 ERA would expire of further state legislative consideration if
81	81	not ratified by enough state legislatures by the originally
82	82	agreed-to deadline of March 22, 1979--would still remain today
83	83	fully supportive of the 1972 measure; and
84	84	WHEREAS, A scheme is clearly afoot to tardily penetrate the
85	85	1972 Equal Rights Amendment into the United States Constitution by
86	86	improper and irregular methods, and, under the doctrine of qui
87	87	tacet consentire videtur ubi loqui debuit ac potuit ("he who is
88	88	silent is taken to agree, when he ought to have spoken, and was able
89	89	to"), it is incumbent upon the Texas Legislature to proactively
90	90	interpose clarification and objection to such an effort that--if
91	91	ultimately successful--would contort the intentions of the 62nd
92	92	Texas Legislature in 1972 when its members ratified the 1972 ERA;
93	93	and
94	94	WHEREAS, In 2021, North Dakota legislators adopted a
95	95	concurrent resolution clarifying that North Dakota's 1975
96	96	ratification of the 1972 ERA "officially lapsed at 11:59 p.m. on
97	97	March 22, 1979"; and
98	98	WHEREAS, This Texas concurrent resolution cannot--and does
99	99	not claim to--"rescind" the 62nd Texas Legislature's 1972
100	100	ratification of the 1972 Equal Rights Amendment as Texas was
101	101	formally on record as ratifying the ERA from March 30, 1972, through
102	102	March 22, 1979, and that history remains completely intact and
103	103	utterly unchanged by this Texas concurrent resolution as,
104	104	logically, there is nothing valid that currently remains pending
105	105	before the Texas Legislature with respect to the 1972 ERA that could
106	106	even be "rescinded" by the Texas Legislature in the first place; and
107	107	WHEREAS, Present-day Texas lawmakers should not silently and
108	108	passively allow the 62nd Texas Legislature's 1972 ratification of
109	109	the 1972 Equal Rights Amendment to be misappropriated or co-opted
110	110	by well-placed forces seeking to infiltrate the long-expired 1972
111	111	ERA into the federal Constitution by aberrant means; and
112	112	WHEREAS, Current Texas legislators disagree with--and want
113	113	no part of--any unorthodox, subpar, or experimental attempt to
114	114	belatedly burrow the no-longer-pending 1972 ERA into the nation's
115	115	highest legal document today; and
116	116	WHEREAS, Recognizing the need for women and men to be treated
117	117	as equals under the law, Texas has its own state-level Equal Rights
118	118	Amendment found in Article I, Section 3a, of the Texas
119	119	Constitution, thereby guaranteeing equal legal rights to both women
120	120	and men within this state; and
121	121	WHEREAS, During 2024, both houses of the United States
122	122	Congress formally received resolutions from state lawmakers in
123	123	Maryland and Minnesota memorializing the two houses of Congress to
124	124	ignore the irregularity of the Illinois, Nevada, and Virginia
125	125	legislatures' 2017, 2018, and 2020 post-deadline ERA
126	126	"ratifications" and to proceed nevertheless to adopt a
127	127	Congressional resolution proclaiming those three belated
128	128	"ratifications" to be valid and ultimately to declare, albeit
129	129	falsely, that the 1972 ERA has become the United States
130	130	Constitution's 28th Amendment; now, therefore, be it
131	131	RESOLVED, That the 89th Legislature of the State of Texas,
132	132	Regular Session, 2025, hereby assert the following facts:
133	133	(1) The national 1972 Equal Rights Amendment did not become
134	134	part of the United States Constitution as the federal ERA failed to
135	135	garner the constitutionally-required ratifications from a
136	136	sufficient number of state legislatures by its original
137	137	congressionally-imposed deadline of March 22, 1979; and
138	138	(2) The legislatures of three states--from 2017 to
139	139	2020--have purported to "ratify" the 1972 ERA, long after time ran
140	140	out for them to have done so, and the legislatures of two other
141	141	states have officially voiced support to Congress for that trio's
142	142	tardy and irregular actions; and
143	143	(3) One of the two houses of the United States Congress has a
144	144	recent history of adopting joint resolutions agreeing that the
145	145	legislatures of late-acting states should have authority to
146	146	"ratify" the 1972 ERA decades after the proposal's date of
147	147	termination; and
148	148	(4) The now out-of-power 46th President of the United States
149	149	issued a proclamation on January 17, 2025, erroneously declaring
150	150	that the 1972 ERA currently "is the law of the land"; and
151	151	(5) The North Dakota Legislative Assembly demonstrated in
152	152	2021 the wisdom of formally going on record establishing legal
153	153	clarification as to the status of ERA ratifications made by state
154	154	legislatures from 1972 through 1977--when the Indiana General
155	155	Assembly became the last state legislature to validly ratify the
156	156	ERA during the 1970s; and, be it further
157	157	RESOLVED, That the Texas House of Representatives and the
158	158	Texas Senate, therefore, do hereby join their counterparts in North
159	159	Dakota by clarifying that the vitality of Senate Concurrent
160	160	Resolution No. 1 of the 2nd Called Session of the 62nd Texas
161	161	Legislature, by which Texas lawmakers ratified the 1972 Equal
162	162	Rights Amendment on March 30, 1972, officially lapsed at
163	163	11:59 p.m. on March 22, 1979; and, be it further
164	164	RESOLVED, That after March 22, 1979, the Texas
165	165	Legislature--while in agreement that women and men should enjoy
166	166	equal rights in the eyes of the law--should not be counted by either
167	167	house of the United States Congress, should not be counted by the
168	168	Archivist of the United States, should not be counted by the
169	169	legislature of any other state of the Union, should not be counted
170	170	by any federal or state court of law, and should not be counted by
171	171	any other person or entity as still having on record today a live
172	172	ratification of the long-expired Equal Rights Amendment to the
173	173	Constitution of the United States as was offered by House Joint
174	174	Resolution No. 208 of the 92nd Congress on March 22, 1972; and, be
175	175	it further
176	176	RESOLVED, That the 89th Texas Legislature respectfully asks
177	177	that any and all formal copies of the aforementioned Senate
178	178	Concurrent Resolution No. 1, 62nd Texas Legislature, 2nd Called
179	179	Session, which were conveyed to the federal government in 1972, be
180	180	returned to the State of Texas for safekeeping and permanent
181	181	preservation henceforth in the custody of the Texas State Library
182	182	and Archives Commission; and, be it further
183	183	RESOLVED, That the 89th Texas Legislature courteously
184	184	request that the full and complete verbatim text of this concurrent
185	185	resolution be duly published in the Congressional Record as an
186	186	official memorial to the United States Congress, and that this
187	187	concurrent resolution be referred to whichever congressional
188	188	committees, in each body, that would have appropriate jurisdiction
189	189	over this concurrent resolution's subject matter; and, be it
190	190	further
191	191	RESOLVED, That the Chief Clerk of the Texas House of
192	192	Representatives be directed to forward, in separate envelopes, no
193	193	later than September 30, 2025, individual certified copies of this
194	194	concurrent resolution, each accompanied by its own signed cover
195	195	letter, to the Vice President of the United States (in his formal
196	196	capacity as presiding officer of the United States Senate and
197	197	addressed to him at Suite S-212 of the United States Capitol
198	198	Building), to the Secretary of the United States Senate, to the
199	199	Parliamentarian of the United States Senate, and to both United
200	200	States Senators representing Texas; and, be it further
201	201	RESOLVED, That the Chief Clerk of the Texas House of
202	202	Representatives be directed to forward, in separate envelopes, no
203	203	later than September 30, 2025, individual certified copies of this
204	204	concurrent resolution, each accompanied by its own signed cover
205	205	letter, to the Speaker of the United States House of
206	206	Representatives, to the Clerk of the United States House of
207	207	Representatives, to the Parliamentarian of the United States House
208	208	of Representatives, and to all members of the United States House of
209	209	Representatives elected from districts in Texas; and, be it further
210	210	RESOLVED, That the Chief Clerk of the Texas House of
211	211	Representatives (pursuant to federal law, 98 Stat. 2280, et seq.)
212	212	be directed to forward, no later than September 30, 2025, a
213	213	certified copy of this concurrent resolution, accompanied by a
214	214	signed cover letter, to the Archivist of the United States at the
215	215	National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C.