Status of the Equal Rights Amendment

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Image of female face with inscription that says Zonta says no to violence against women.

The Equal Rights Amendment was first proposed in 1923 by Alice Paul and the National Woman’s Party. It was passed by Congress in 1972 and sent to the states for ratification, which is achieved when a proposed amendment is accepted by three-quarters (38) of the states. By the Congressionally imposed deadline of June 30, 1982, only 35 states had voted yes.

If you go to http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/congress.htm , you’ll see that the traditional ERA ratification bill was introduced in the U.S. Senate on March 5, 2013 by lead sponsor Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ).  This bill, S.J. Res. 10, has 10 co-sponsors: Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK), Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD), Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA), Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).  The text and status of that bill can be found: http://beta.congress.gov/bill/113th-congress/senate-joint-resolution/10/text  Reasons why we need the ERA can be found at http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/misc/ERA_why_we_need.pdf 

Ratification in three more of the 15 state legislatures that did not ratify the ERA during the 1972-82 ratification campaign is based on legal analysis that when three more states vote yes, this non-traditional process could withstand legal challenge and put the ERA into the Constitution.

The three-state strategy bills removing the deadline for ratification of the ERA will be reintroduced in the near future by Senator Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) and Representative Robert Andrews (D-NJ).  A map indicating which states have not ratified can be found at http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/  That three-state-strategy and reasons why ratification is still possible even after the so-called 1982 deadline can be found at http://www.equalrightsamendment.org/strategy.htm

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