Senate fails to revive Equal Rights Amendment

Senate Democrats on Thursday fell nine votes short of approving a resolution to remove a 1982 deadline to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine were the only Republican lawmakers to join Democrats in favor of the resolution. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer changed his affirmative vote to no so that he can bring the measure to the chamber floor later. He said the amendment is more important after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision last summer.

Why hasn’t the amendment been added to the Constitution? The amendment was first proposed in 1923 but did not pass Congress until 1972. Initially, Congress set the deadline for at least 38 states to ratify it at seven years, then added an additional three years. Even with the extension, only 35 states had ratified the ERA by 1982. Thirty-eight years later, Virginia became the 38th state to approve the amendment, but it cannot be added to the U.S. Constitution unless the deadline is removed from the original legislation. At the same time, several states—including Nebraska, Tennessee, Idaho, Kentucky, and South Dakota—are attempting to remove their prior approval.

Dig deeper: Listen to Mary Reichard’s report on The World and Everything in It podcast about the amendment’s history.