Sen. Lisa Murkowski announced Friday she would co-sponsor a bipartisan bill with a Maryland senator to remove the ratification deadline for the long-floated Equal Rights Amendment.<\/p>\n
Murkowski, R-Alaska, along with Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., submitted the bipartisan bill as their first bipartisan legislation of the 117th Congress.<\/p>\n
“The required 38 states have ratified the ERA,” Murkowski said in the news release. “Congress must not stand in the way of finally enshrining equality for women into our Constitution.”<\/p>\n
The ERA, approved by the U.S. House in 1971 and Senate in 1972, has languished in a no-man’s-land since then as it awaits ratification by 38 state legislatures. Dissenting states were anchored firmly in the Deep South. The bill, if ratified, would guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex. Virginia became the 38th state legislature to ratify the amendment, doing so in January 2020. Alaska ratified the amendment in 1972. <\/a><\/p>\n [Conservationists welcome Biden’s Roadless Rule review order]<\/ins><\/a><\/p>\n “There should be no time limit on equality. Even as we celebrate America’s first female Vice President, our nation is held back as the only modern constitution that fails to enshrine full equality for both men and women. This is unacceptable,” Cardin said in the news release. “Most Americans are surprised to learn that the ERA is not already part of the U.S. Constitution. The states have done their job to make this happen. Now Congress must finally do its job and remove any legal obstacles to certifying the ERA.”<\/p>\n