Today in Supreme Court History: December 5, 1933

12/5/1933: The 21st Amendment is ratified.

Comments

[JoeFromtheBronx]

DRINK!

This is the text:

Amendment XXI

Section 1.

The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed. [our bad!]

Section 2.

The transportation or importation into any state, territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited. ["territory, or possession" is an interesting bit of constitutionally based home rule applied to a non-state area]

Section 3.

This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several states, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the states by the Congress.

[The time limit is, as is the case for a few proposed amendments, in the text itself; it was not separately established by enabling legislation. Compare the time limit regarding the ERA. If constitutional text matters, that is rather notable.]

[SMP0328]

[The time limit is, as is the case for a few proposed amendments, in the text itself; it was not separately established by enabling legislation. Compare the time limit regarding the ERA. If constitutional text matters, that is rather notable.]

See Coleman v. Miller. A ratification time limit does not need to be in the amendment's text in order to be valid. The ERA's time limit was valid and expired. Both the first Trump Administration and the Biden Administration agreed.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

ratification time limit does not need to be in the amendment's text in order to be valid

Okay. Not disputing that. I said it is "notable" that a fixed seven-year limit was in the constitutional text.

If you want to cite Coleman, it provides that Congress broadly has the discretion to determine timeliness. That includes, for instance, determining the first time limit (since it wasn't fixed by constitutional text) should be extended.

The Biden Administration decided the Trump Administration's determination was rational while adding that it disagreed with some of it. It also said ultimately it would be up to Congress to decide the matter.