Virginia lawmakers leading effort to get Senate vote on Equal Rights Amendment

Virginia Democrats are trying to get a U.S. Senate vote in the lame-duck session to remove the time limit for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.

Virginia, in 2020, became the 38th state to ratify the amendment, which passed both houses of Congress back in 1972.

The legislation that passed Congress in 1972 had a seven-year sunset, which was later extended to 1982, but that obviously expired 40 years ago.

The House has voted multiple times, most recently last year, to remove the time limit, but the Senate hasn’t acted on that matter.

With Republicans in line to take control of the House in January, the moment is now, if ever.

“For over 250 years, American women have been denied the same legal rights and protections as men under the law. This is unacceptable. Women have waited too long for our nation to fulfill its promise of equality,” a group of Virginia lawmakers – Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, and Reps. Gerry Connolly, Don Beyer, Elaine Luria, Abigail Spanberger and Jennifer Wexton – wrote in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday.

“We believe that there should be no time limit on equality,” the group wrote. “The required 38 states have now ratified the ERA. The House has passed legislation eliminating the time limit for ratification. Now it is up to the Senate to remove any obstacles to certifying the ERA as the 28th Amendment. More than a century after women fought for and earned the right to vote, our progress as a nation is incomplete unless all women are able to achieve freedom and equality.”