Mar 17, 2021 / 05:27 AM EST
(CNN) The House is pushing forward with a joint resolution to remove a deadline for states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, after a recent federal court ruling said the deadline for the ERA expired long ago.
Proponents of the ERA believe the court ruling signaled that it’s now up to Congress to validate their argument that the ERA has already been ratified and should be published as the Constitution’s 28th Amendment. But opponents say Congress cannot retroactively change its imposed deadline decades after it expired and blast the vote as a political stunt.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced that the ERA resolution would be considered by the chamber on Wednesday,during the month of Women’s History Month. The House is also planning a vote Wednesday to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, a landmark bill championed by President Joe Biden that expired in 2018.
ADVERTISEMENT
The House passed a similar resolution last year to remove the ERA’s ratification deadline, but it was ignored by the Senate, which was controlled by Republicans at the time.
The House is also expected to pass legislation later Wednesday to renew the Violence Against Women Act, another bill that the Senate didn’t take up in the previous session of Congress.
House Democratic women made a point of wearing white, the traditional color of suffragettes, during Wednesday’s proceedings to mark the occasion.
House Democrats are sending the measures back over to the upper chamber now that their party controls both chambers of Congress, among many bills central to their legislative agenda that never got Senate action under Republicans.
House votes to revive Equal Rights Amendment for women despite legal questions msn.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from msn.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
House passes joint resolution to remove ERA deadline
The House on Wednesday passed a joint resolution that would remove a deadline for states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, after a recent federal court ruling said the deadline for the ERA expired long ago.
Proponents of the ERA believe the court ruling signaled that it’s now up to Congress to validate their argument that the ERA has already been ratified and should be published as the Constitution’s 28th Amendment. But opponents say Congress cannot retroactively change its imposed deadline decades after it expired and blast the vote as a political stunt.
WASHINGTON – The House voted largely along party lines Wednesday
to remove the expired deadline for ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment for women, despite the Justice Department s view that such a move is not possible.
The resolution, which must also be approved by the Senate, says the amendment shall be part of the Constitution whenever it s been ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states. That happened last year.
But the 222 to 204
House vote came decades after the seven-year ratification deadline set by Congress as well as a three-year extension approved when the amendment was coming close to passage in the 1970s.