"The Equal Rights Amendment 2020" is a stage-magic show -- a glitzy production, playing now in the media, Congress, and the courts. The real ERA is 40 years dead. What you see now is a political hologram -- it looks real, but you can walk right thru it. Let's take a closer look! 
In 1972,the 92nd Congress, by the required 2/3 votes, approved the ERA Resolution (H.J. Res. 208). Like every proposed constitutional amendment since the First Congress, it contained a Proposing Clause--which is not a "preamble," but required under Article V of the Constitution.
Congress need not include a deadline in a Proposing Clause, but the Supreme Court has said it can do so and they're binding. The ERA Proposing Clause had a 7-year deadline for ratification--just like Proposing Clauses of the 23rd, 24th, 25th, & 26th Amts, & failed D.C. proposal.
Some pro-ERA lawyers now say deadline was unconstitutional. Absurd, and contrary to past Supreme Court decisions -- but if true, would mean that EVERY constitutional amendment submitted by Congress since 1960 contained a fundamental constitutional flaw. So are all of them void?
In 1978, when ERA groups saw the ERA would not achieve 38 ratifications by the 7-year deadline (March, 1979), they got the 95th Congress to approve a measure (H.J. Res. 638) that purported to extend the deadline to June 1982. Even the Washington Post editorial board objected!
The only federal court to consider the matter ruled the extension stunt was unconstitutional in 2 ways. In 1982, the Solicitor General of the U.S. informed the U.S. Supreme Court that the ERA had "failed of adoption" under either the 1979 deadline or the claimed extension.
SCOTUS agreed, dismissed case as moot. Amt expert Prof. Michael Paulsen says that SCOTUS "disposition of the case on mootness grounds logically entails the predicate conclusion that the proposed ERA had failed of ratification and was no longer legally capable of being ratified."
Recognizing that the 1972 ERA was dead, the Democratic U.S. House leadership in 1983 tried to send a "start-over" ERA to the states, but it was defeated on the floor of the House, in substantial part because the leadership barred a vote on an abortion-neutral revision. (11-15-83)
On 1-6-20 the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) issued a 38-page opinion confirming that the 1972 ERA is dead & cannot be resurrected by state legislatures or Congress. Archivist (1-8-20): "NARA...will abide by the OLC opinion, unless otherwise directed by a final court order."
Democratic leaders in Congress now push H.J. Res. 79-- they claim if passed by simple majorities (not 2/3), without President's signature, this measure will retroactively revive dead ERA. This is political snake oil! The only constitutional path: Start over. #ERA #ERANoShortcuts
