Coleman v. Miller

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Coleman v. Miller
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 10, 1938 Reargued April 17–April 18, 1939 Decided June 5, 1939
Full case name	Coleman, et al. v. Miller, Secretary of the Senate of State of Kansas, et al.
Citations	307 U.S. 433 (more) 59 S. Ct. 972; 83 L. Ed. 1385; 1939 U.S. LEXIS 1066; 1 Lab. Cas. (CCH) ¶ 17,046; 122 A.L.R. 695
Case history
Prior	Cert. to the Supreme Court of Kansas
Holding
A proposed amendment to the Federal Constitution is considered pending before the states indefinitely unless Congress establishes a deadline by which the states must act. Further, Congress—not the courts—is responsible for deciding whether an amendment has been validly ratified.
Court membership
Chief Justice Charles E. Hughes Associate Justices James C. McReynolds · Pierce Butler Harlan F. Stone · Owen Roberts Hugo Black · Stanley F. Reed Felix Frankfurter · William O. Douglas
Case opinions
Majority	Hughes, joined by Stone, Roberts, Black, Reed, Frankfurter, Douglas
Concurrence	Black, joined by Roberts, Frankfurter, Douglas
Dissent	Butler, joined by McReynolds
Statement	Frankfurter
Laws applied
U.S. Const. Art. V
This case overturned a previous ruling or rulings
Dillon v. Gloss (1921) (in part)

Coleman v. Miller, 307 U.S. 433 (1939), is a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court which clarified that if the Congress of the United States—when proposing for ratification an amendment to the United States Constitution, pursuant to Article V thereof—chooses not to set a deadline by which the state legislatures of three-fourths of the states or, if prescribed by Congress state ratifying conventions in three-fourths of the states, must act upon the proposed amendment, then the proposed amendment remains pending business before the state legislatures (or ratifying conventions).^[1] The case centered on the Child Labor Amendment, which was proposed for ratification by Congress in 1924.