![]() Others, including the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel in a 2020 memo and a D.C. Some contend the deadline is meaningless because Article V of the Constitution doesn’t specifically say Congress can set time limits on amendments. ![]() “There are a bunch of open questions” about Congress’ power and the procedures it can follow in the amendment process, Franke said.Īmong those is whether Senate Democrats could pass a resolution by a simple majority to affirm that the ERA is ratified because 38 states have approved it, rather than needing a supermajority vote that ERA backers don’t have in the current Senate, she said. Now advocates are calling on Congress to declare the deadline void and the ERA ratified, even if ERA supporters in Congress have to get creative. Efforts to void that deadline have been rebuffed by courts, the Justice Department, and the US archivist, whose job includes publishing constitutional amendments once they’re ratified. The Equal Rights Amendment, in some supporters’ view, was fully ratified as the 28th Amendment when the Virginia legislature voted to approve it in January 2020, giving it the required approvals by 38 states.īut the Virginia vote, like those in Nevada and Illinois, came four decades after Congress’ 1979 deadline. Thirty-five states approved it by 1979, three short of the three-fourths threshold the Constitution requires. The measure finally passed through Congress and went to the states in 1972, but with a seven-year deadline. The language of the ERA states “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of sex.” It would give Congress authority to pass laws enforcing this mandate, and could prompt government agencies to revisit policies related to abortion, equal pay, violence against women, and pregnancy discrimination.Īn earlier version was first introduced in Congress in 1923, drafted by women’s suffrage activist Alice Paul after she helped win ratification of women’s right to vote via the 19th Amendment in 1920. “There’s no good outcome before this Supreme Court,” she said. ![]() The best option for now is likely through Congress and certainly not through pursuing an appeal to the US Supreme Court, considering the conservative leanings of many current justices, said Katherine Franke, a law professor at Columbia University and director of its Center for Gender and Sexuality Law. 28 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The ERA holds the promise of a brighter future for us all,” said Thursday Williams, a college student and ERA Coalition board member, in Feb. But some of the ERA’s most vocal supporters say it’s still ripe to be recognized as part of the Constitution, guaranteeing US women equal treatment under the law on a national level for the first time. The ruling adds to a string of disappointments in court and decades of doubt about the amendment’s future. But the court didn’t entirely rule out the ERA backers’ argument that Congress lacks authority to set such deadlines. 28 decision, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rejected calls to order the ERA published as the 28th Amendment, finding the 1979 deadline that Congress set for states to ratify it might mean the amendment’s window for passage has closed. ![]() ![]() The Equal Rights Amendment has faced a century of setbacks since its first introduction in 1923, most recently this week’s court ruling that has ERA backers largely shifting their focus to pressing Congress to validate the measure. ![]()
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