ERA --about time!
Linda Hanson | Published on 7/19/2023
It has been a hundred years this month since the Equal Rights Amendment was introduced in Congress.
In 1923, three years after the ratification of the 19th amendment, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was initially proposed in Congress in an effort to secure full equality for women. It seeks to end the legal distinctions between men and women in terms of divorce, property, employment, and other matters.
The House of Representatives finally passed the Equal Rights Amendment on October 12, 1971, with a vote of 354 yeas and 24 nays (with 51 not voting), the Senate passed the Equal Rights Amendment on March 22, 1972, by a vote of 84 yeas and 8 nays (with 7 not voting), and the amendment was sent to the States for ratification;
Three-fourths of the States have ratified the Equal Rights Amendment, the final State necessary, Virginia, having ratified on January 27, 2020, Indiana ratified it January 18, 1977, the 35th state to do so. But the deadline set by Congress was not met, so the archivist in the Library of Congress has not published the amendment.
After more than a generation of significant advances for women, we still sorely need the Equal Rights Amendment. Legal sex discrimination is not yet a thing of the past, and the progress of the past 60 years is not irreversible. Indeed, women's equality under law has even been revoked by state legislators and judges in multiple cases over the past year.
In July 2023, a new joint resolution ERA Now (H.J.Res.82) was introduced in Congress to affirm the ERA and direct the Archivist of the United States to certify and publish the Equal Rights Amendment as the 28th Amendment of the United States Constitution.
See a video of the introduction of the joint resolution with Senator Kirsten Gillibrand here:
Tell your congressional representatives to support ERA Now!