I’m shocked! White Christian Nationalist Republicans who want to impose an authoritarian theocracy in the United States similar to the Mullahs in Iran or the Taliban in Afghanistan, and render women second class citizens without any rights especially over their own bodies, failed to provide the necessary votes for cloture (Senate filibuster rule) to make the Equal Rights Amendment part of the Constitution.
The Hill reports, Senate GOP blocks Equal Rights Amendment:
Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a measure that would have allowed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to be added to the Constitution.
Senators voted 51 to 47 to invoke cloture on a motion to proceed, falling short of the 60 votes it it needed [under the Senate filibuster rule.]
Not voting: Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Mike Lee (R-UT).
Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine) were the lone Republicans to vote with every Democrat.
The ERA passed Congress in 1972, having been first proposed in 1923. Constitutional amendments, under U.S. law, must be ratified by three-quarters of all state legislatures, meaning 38 states.
In 2020, Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the ERA, but it did so after the 1982 deadline to ratify the amendment had passed.
The Senate resolution would have removed the deadline so that the ERA could become the 28th Amendment. Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Murkowski were the resolution’s lead co-sponsors.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) argued throughout the week that the legislation was needed following the Supreme Court‘s ruling last summer that overturned Roe v. Wade.
“This resolution is as necessary as it is timely. America can never hope to be a land of freedom and opportunity so long as half of its population is treated like second class citizens,” Schumer said on the Senate floor ahead of the vote.
“There is no good reason — none — for this chamber, this Congress and this nation to bind itself to limitations set 50 years ago,” he continued. “If you look at the terrible things happening to women’s rights in this country, it’s clear we must act. To the horror of hundreds of millions of American people, women in America have far fewer rights today than they did a year ago.” [Or for the past 49 years.]
Schumer switched his vote to “no” in order to bring up the bill at another time.
Nearly a dozen House Democrats marched across the Capitol to the Senate shortly before the vote began on Thursday to demand that the upper chamber pass the measure.
During the trek through the building, members of the ERA Caucus and Democratic Women’s Caucus chanted “what do we want? ERA. When do we want it? Now.”
“We’re right outside the Senate chamber while the vote is happening for the ERA right now. So the House is standing, saying to the Senate we need you to make the ERA happen today. ERA now,” Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), a co-chair of the ERA Caucus, said before entering the Senate chamber.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), another co-chair of the Caucus, said “gender equality can’t wait, there should be no deadline for that.”
“It’s been over 100 years, we deserve for gender equality to be enshrined in the Constitution. We’re gonna go in here, look at our Senate colleagues and demand they do the right thing, do the right thing by the women of this country,” she added.
They did not “do the right thing,” of course.
There are two ballot measures which need to be on the 2024 ballot in Arizona (and you should have gotten started yesterday): A constitutional amendment for an equal rights amendment in the Arizona Constitution, and a constitutional amendment guaranteeing access to a safe medical abortion. Constitutional amendments require more petition signatures, so get on it!
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One correction – the ERA IS the 28th Amendment. As the district and circuit court judge said in the DC circuit, and as precedent is clear, the time line that is not in the body of the text does NOT have any legal significance. The vote was to eliminate it to make it clear to the bone headed and to force the archivist to publish but it is also not required to be published to be the 28th Amendment. Yes there are law suits all over the place, but the vast majority of constitutional scholars argued what the judges agreed – the timeline has no legal significance and does NOT stop the amendment, now passed by 38 states, from being in the Constitution. Even the legislators and of course the news media had it wrong yesterday often.