It’s (Finally) Official: Virginia is the 38th State to Ratify the ERA!

At last! At last! The ERA was completely and finally ratified today by both the Senate and the House of Virginia, and has become the 38th and final state needed to put the ERA in the U.S. Constitution.

https://twitter.com/HalaAyala/status/1221829425458753537

Can you believe it? After 47 years, both the House and Senate of Virginia have voted not once but twice in just twelve days to ratify the ERA. Women have waited far too long to be guaranteed equality under the Constitution. The ERA has been stonewalled by the opposition who are committed to preserving the old order—where women have to work twice are hard for half as much.

We know the fight isn’t over but we, as well as many Constitutional scholars, believe that the arbitrary timeline placed in the preamble to the ERA, and which would not appear in the Constitution, is not binding. ERA supporters are fired up and ready to finish the march to victory.

It is past time to see the ERA enshrined in the U.S. Constitution for good.

About

Eleanor Smeal is president of the Feminist Majority Foundation and publisher of Ms. For over five decades, she has played a leading role in both national and state campaigns to win women’s rights legislation, including the Equal Rights Amendment.