<P> In Dillon v. Gloss (1921), the Supreme Court upheld Congress's power to prescribe time limitations for state ratifications and intimated that clearly out of date proposals were no longer open for ratification . Granting that it found nothing express in Article V relating to time constraints, the Court yet allowed that it found intimated in the amending process a "strongly suggest (ive)" argument that proposed amendments are not open to ratification for all time or by States acting at widely separate times . The court subsequently, in Coleman v. Miller (1939), modified its opinion considerably . In that case, related to the proposed Child Labor Amendment, it held that the question of timeliness of ratification is a political and non-justiciable one, leaving the issue to Congress's discretion . It would appear that the length of time elapsing between proposal and ratification is irrelevant to the validity of the amendment . Based upon this precedent, the Archivist of the United States proclaimed the Twenty - seventh Amendment as having been ratified when it surpassed the "three fourths of the several states" plateau for becoming a part of the Constitution . Declared ratified on May 7, 1992, it had been submitted to the states for ratification on September 25, 1789, an unprecedented time period of 202 years, 7 months and 12 days . </P> <P> Whether once it has prescribed a ratification period Congress may extend the period without necessitating action by already - ratified States embroiled Congress, the states, and the courts in argument with respect to the proposed Equal Rights Amendment (Sent to the states on March 22, 1972 with a seven - year ratification time limit attached). In 1978 Congress, by simple majority vote in both houses, extended the original deadline by 3 years, 3 months and 8 days (through June 30, 1982). </P> <P> The amendment's proponents argued that the fixing of a time limit and the extending of it were powers committed exclusively to Congress under the political question doctrine and that in any event Congress had power to extend . It was argued that inasmuch as the fixing of a reasonable time was within Congress' power and that Congress could fix the time either in advance or at some later point, based upon its evaluation of the social and other bases of the necessities of the amendment, Congress did not do violence to the Constitution when, once having fixed the time, it subsequently extended the time . Proponents recognized that if the time limit was fixed in the text of the amendment Congress could not alter it because the time limit as well as the substantive provisions of the proposal had been subject to ratification by a number of States, making it unalterable by Congress except through the amending process again . Opponents argued that Congress, having by a two - thirds vote sent the amendment and its authorizing resolution to the states, had put the matter beyond changing by passage of a simple resolution, that states had either acted upon the entire package or at least that they had or could have acted affirmatively upon the promise of Congress that if the amendment had not been ratified within the prescribed period it would expire and their assent would not be compelled for longer than they had intended . </P> <P> In 1981, the United States District Court for the District of Idaho, however, found that Congress did not have the authority to extend the deadline, even when only contained within the proposing joint resolution's resolving clause . The Supreme Court had decided to take up the case, bypassing the Court of Appeals, but before they could hear the case, the extended period granted by Congress had been exhausted without the necessary number of states, thus rendering the case moot . </P>

Called by congress is a method for proposing amendments