House moves to revive ERA

Democratic lawmakers want to void the expiration date of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The original deadline for states to ratify the women’s rights measure was in 1982, but the U.S. House of Representatives voted on Thursday to reopen the approval process. Virginia lawmakers ratified the amendment last month, bringing the number of states that have approved it up to the required 38.

Does it have a chance? The resolution is unlikely to pass in the Republican-controlled U.S. Senate. Even if it did, lawsuits are sure to bog down the amendment’s adoption. That’s why U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a longtime champion of the ERA, recommended this week that supporters start over with a new amendment instead of trying to resurrect the old one.

Dig deeper: Read Rachel Lynn Aldrich’s report in The Sift about the states that just approved the ERA.