Senate GOP Blocks Resurrection of Equal Rights Amendment

Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., joined from left by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and other congressional Democrats, holds up a copy of the Constitution during an event about their resolution to remove the deadline for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment at the Capitol in Washington on Feb. 12, 2020. J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo

Senate Republicans blocked the efforts of Democrats on April 27 to revive the long-since-expired Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) a century after it was first introduced.

Specifically, the vote was to invoke cloture on a motion to proceed in taking up a joint resolution (pdf) to disregard the deadline that Congress set decades ago for the amendment’s ratification.

Although two Republicans—Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)—voted with 49 Democrats to take up the resolution, they fell short of the 60 votes required to invoke cloture.

“We lost this vote; we are going to win this fight,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said at a press conference outside the Capitol.

Schumer, who switched his vote to “no” so he could bring up the bill at another time, said the amendment’s supporters would continue to “fight until we win.”

“Women are under assault politically in so many ways, whether it’s the right to choose, or women’s health care, or discrimination, or so many other things,” he asserted. “It’s about time America said no to all of that.

“It’s about time America said no to the MAGA majority on the Supreme Court, that we need protections for women,” he added.

A Century of Debate

First drafted in 1923, the ERA was passed by Congress in 1972 with the stipulation that the amendment must be ratified within seven years.

The text of the amendment states, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

According to Article V of the Constitution, for a proposed amendment to become law, it must be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures. By 1978, however, the ERA had only been ratified by 35 states—three short of the 38-state threshold.

Seeing that more time would be necessary to reach the mark, Congress voted to extend the ratification deadline to June 30, 1982, but it wasn’t until 2020 that Virginia finally put the amendment across the line. And with the deadline long since passed, the amendment has yet to become law.

Prior to Thursday’s vote, the Biden administration weighed in on the matter, signaling its support for removing the deadline.

“In the United States of America, no one’s rights should be denied on account of their sex,” the White House said in a statement of administration policy (pdf). “It is long past time to definitively enshrine the principle of gender equality in the Constitution. Gender equality is not only a moral issue: the full participation of women and girls across all aspects of our society is essential to our economic prosperity, our security, and the health of our democracy.”

Republican Fears

Republicans, on the other hand, have argued that the amendment is unnecessary, given that women are already protected from sex-based discrimination under the 14^th Amendment.

Additionally, others have expressed concerns that the law could erase sex-specific legal protections for women.

“What the Equal Rights Amendment actually does … is take away key protections for women when it comes to their ability to compete in sports, or even sex-specific spaces like locker rooms, bathrooms, and prisons,” Heritage Foundation research associate Emma Waters told EWTN News in February.

Waters also held that the amendment could be interpreted to create a right to unrestricted abortion.

“New Mexico actually passed a state-level Equal Rights Amendment,” she noted. “And in 1998, their Supreme Court not only ruled that this provided a right to an abortion, but it actually provides a right to taxpayer-funded abortions, which would go even further than Roe v. Wade did.”

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), who chairs the Senate Pro-Life Caucus, shared the same concern while testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Feb. 28.

The “vague” language of the amendment, she argued, would be used by pro-abortion activists to “re-empower unelected judges to impose a radical abortion policy that is in line with China and North Korea.”

She continued: “The 1972 Equal Rights Amendment would harm the rights of women and weaken the United States Constitution. I call on my colleagues to reject this unconstitutional and misguided effort.”