On March 18, 1996, the Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress released a memorandum on ERA ratification, including analysis of the "three-state strategy" for preserving the existing 35 state ratifications. While noting that there is no precedent for accepting state ratifications after a deadline, the report stated that inclusion of the 27th (Madison) Amendment in the Constitution has implications for the premise that ratification of the ERA by three more states could allow Congress to declare ratification accomplished.

Despite Supreme Court rulings requiring a "sufficiently contemporaneous" time period, the CRS analysis concludes that "Congress' acceptance of the ratification of the 27th Amendment...appears to have disproved the assumption that, absent a deadline, an amendment ceases to be eligible to be ratified merely because of the passage of time." The three-state strategy expands on this concept to propose that amendments whose time limit is not in the text, such as the ERA, likewise remain valid for ratification indefinitely. While ERA opponents might argue that 21^st century ratifications could not be counted as contemporaneous with those from 1972 – 1982, the CRS report notes that "the acceptance of the Congressional Pay Amendment makes this argument much more difficult."

Congress has already shown that it claims authority to alter time limits in resolving clauses by extending the original ERA deadline from 1979 to 1982. In light of that action, the CRS memorandum poses a key question: "Does this mean this (or another) Congress has the authority to recognize state ratifications of the ERA that may be received in the future, even though the deadlines have passed?"

The report, while taking no position, discusses three possible alternatives for a three-state strategy.

(1) ERA proponents could ask Congress to pass a new ratification deadline, thereby reviving the process that has already produced 35 of the necessary 38 state ratifications.

(2) Through the approach of H.Res. 39 [now H.Res. 98 in the 107th Congress], Congress could be requested to "take any legislative action necessary to verify the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment as part of the Constitution" if three additional states vote to ratify.

(3) Proponents could pursue the argument of the legal analysis in "Why the ERA Remains Legally Viable and Properly Before the States" (A. Held, S. Herndon, D. Stager, published in the Spring 1997 issue of William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law), which claims that because future Congresses can extend ratification deadlines in resolving clauses, those deadlines constitute no absolute closure on the process, and the ERA remains open to ratification by the states.

The proposition that one Congress cannot bind a future Congress by means of a rule or law offers both possibilities and difficulties for the three-state strategy. While a deadline might be able to be extended or eliminated by a future Congress, the commitment of H.Res. 98 to affirm ratification after three more states could also be ignored by a future Congress.

The CRS report sketches a possible scenario if three more states ratify the ERA. The U.S. Archivist, who maintains records regarding amendment ratifications, would likely file the new state ratification documents with the prior ones rather than rejecting them, but would probably not certify the amendment by a proclamation after the 38th state approval as long as existing instructions from Congress indicate that the ratification deadline has expired. Further action would likely be required from Congress prior to or at that time in order to validate the ERA as part of the Constitution.