Quote:
The House on Wednesday adopted a resolution to remove the deadline for ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to formally ban discrimination on the basis of sex as one of Democrats' top legislative priorities.
Lawmakers passed the resolution largely along party lines, 222-204, to send it to the Senate. Four Republicans joined with all Democrats in support of the measure.
The vote comes after a federal judge ruled earlier this month that three states' recent ratifications of the ERA came too late to ensure its addition to the Constitution.
Quote:
States were granted a seven-year deadline in 1972 to ratify the ERA, which was later extended to 1982. But only 35 states had ratified the ERA by then, falling short of the three-fourths needed to successfully amend the Constitution.
Virginia became the 38th state last year to ratify the ERA and clinch the three-fourths threshold, following votes by Nevada and Illinois since 2017 albeit more than 40 years after Congress first endorsed the proposed amendment.
Proponents argue that Congress should act to remove the original deadline from decades ago so the ERA can still be ratified.
The HillQuote:
The judge's ruling earlier this month followed a similar opinion from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel last year that the ERA is no longer pending before the states and can't be ratified because its deadline expired.
When asked about the legal counsel's opinion, Attorney General Merrick Garland said in written answers to the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation process that "any opinions or legal advice I might give on this subject would be based solely on the law, and not on any other consideration."
Just start the hell over if it is that important.
