WASHINGTON—Today the House of Representatives passed H.J.Res. 17, which will remove the arbitrary time limit previously imposed by Congress for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. When Congress passed the ERA in 1972, it set an arbitrary deadline of seven years for state legislatures to ratify the amendment. Thirty-five states ratified the ERA, three short of the requisite 38. Since the deadline passed, Nevada, Illinois, and Virginia ratified the ERA, providing the appropriate number of states to include it in the Constitution. After voting in favor of the resolution, Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva issued the following statement:

“Equal protection under the law shouldn’t be controversial. The ERA gives women an important tool to combat longstanding gender disparities and sex discrimination, and enshrining gender equality in our nation’s founding document shows just how far we’ve come in the fight for a more inclusive nation. We can never call ourselves a truly equal society by denying equal rights to half our population, and it’s long past time that the ERA become part of the Constitution.”

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