Orrin Hatch: “I have to say, that I do not see the wisdom in departing from the longstanding 7-year standard that this resolution…”

“I have to say, that I do not see the wisdom in departing from the longstanding 7-year standard that this resolution reflects. The 18th amendment, ratified in 1921, was the first constitutional amendment to contain a time limitation of any kind. Although there was heated debate at the time over Congress' authority to impose such a limitation on the States' ratification of the constitutional amendment, the Supreme Court subsequently upheld Congress' power to set a reasonable time limit on ratification in the case of Dillon versus Gloss back in 1921. As a result, we find 7-year time limitations within the actual text of the 18th, 20th, 21st and 22d amendments. Since approval of the 23d amendment in 1961, Congress has continued to include a 7-year time limitation. But such limitation has been removed from the text of the amendment and incorporated instead in the joint resolution proposed in the amendment as we have done in Senate Joint Resolution 1. Now, just to verify the continued adherence to the convention of a 7-year time limitation, I did a quick review of the 107 Constitutional amendments introduced in the last Congress. Indeed, of those 107 resolutions, only 1 contained a time limitation that varied from the conventional 7-year limitation.”