Women Vote Secured: Supreme Court Upholds 19th Amendment

The Supreme Court unanimously upheld the Nineteenth Amendment in Leser v. Garnett on February 27, 1922, rejecting challenges from Maryland opponents who argued that the amendment was invalid because it expanded the electorate beyond what the original Constitution intended. The plaintiffs claimed the amendment violated state sovereignty and had been improperly ratified because some state legislatures lacked authority to approve it. Justice Louis Brandeis wrote the opinion dismissing all three arguments in a terse ruling that took the Court less than two pages. The decision was critical because it foreclosed any future legal challenge to women's suffrage, which had been ratified only eighteen months earlier after a 72-year campaign. The Nineteenth Amendment had passed the Tennessee legislature by a single vote when 24-year-old representative Harry Burn changed his position at his mother's urging. Without Leser v. Garnett, opponents could have continued challenging ratification state by state for years.