The Hill, Senate GOP Blocks Equal Rights Amendment
Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a measure that would have allowed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to be added to the Constitution.
Senators voted 51 to 47 to invoke cloture on a motion to proceed, falling short of the 60 votes it it needed.
Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine) were the lone Republicans to vote with every Democrat.
The ERA passed Congress in 1972, having been first proposed in 1923. Constitutional amendments, under U.S. law, must be ratified by three-quarters of all state legislatures, meaning 38 states.
In 2020, Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the ERA, but it did so after the 1982 deadline to ratify the amendment had passed.
The Senate resolution would have removed the deadline so that the ERA could become the 28th Amendment. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Murkowski were the resolution’s lead co-sponsors.
Reuters, US Equal Rights Amendment Blocked Again, A Century After Introduction
With a 51-47 vote in favor, Senate Democrats and supporters were nine votes shy of the 60 needed for a resolution to clear the 100-member chamber's filibuster hurdle.
The resolution would have removed a 1982 deadline for state ratification that prevented the Equal Rights Amendment from going into effect. Three states -- Nevada, Illinois and Virginia -- approved it after 1982.
Ms., Republicans Block Senate Vote on ERA
The Senate on Thursday had its first vote on the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in 40 years.
Republican opposition meant that S.J. Res. 4, which would declare the ERA ratified and valid, failed to clear the 60-vote threshold needed to bring it to the floor for debate and a vote. Polls that show 83 percent of Americans believe the ERA should be incorporated into the U.S. Constitution (including 90 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds).
S.J. Res. 4 would declare the ERA, “which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, was ratified by three-fourths of the states, and is therefore a valid constitutional amendment, regardless of any time limit that was in the original proposal.” (The ERA has satisfied all Article V requirements to amend the Constitution: a two-thirds vote in the House and the Senate, achieved in 1971 and 1972, and ratification by three-fourths of the states, after Virginia became the 38th and final state in January of 2020.)
“The resolution is simple,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York). “It removes the arbitrary deadline for state ratification of the ERA that was imposed in the 1970s. … That is why the Senate today should vote in favor of advancing this ERA resolution, so we can bring our nation one step closer to greater justice, greater equality, and a more perfect union. Let that great march towards equality take the next bold step today.”
April 28, 2023 in Constitutional, Legislation | Permalink
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