BOSTON (AP) – The Justice Department has thrown a roadblock into efforts to revive the Equal Rights Amendment, finding that an expired pair of deadlines imposed by Congress on ratification of the measure means it’s too late for additional states to ratify it now.
The memo by Assistant Attorney General Steven Engel comes as Virginia is poised to become the decisive 38th state to approve the ERA nearly four decades after Congress sent it to states in 1972, attaching a 1979 ratification deadline to it.
That deadline was later extended to 1982. During that time just 35 states ratified it – three short of the 38 needed.
“Because three-fourths of the state legislatures did not ratify before the deadline that Congress imposed, the Equal Rights Amendment has failed of adoption and is no longer pending before the States,” Engel wrote.
“Accordingly, even if one or more state legislatures were to ratify the proposed amendment, it would not become part of the Constitution,” he added.