Today, there is a new urgency to act NOW: the Supreme Court, runaway lower federal courts and extremist state legislatures are working to undermine and weaken women’s rights and gender equality. An ERA would stop them in their tracks and secure the gains we have achieved. We are closer than ever before and need only a handful of Republicans to put the ERA into the Constitution.

In January 2023, the same joint resolution was introduced in both houses of Congress: S.J. Res 4 in the Senate and H.J. Res 25 in the House of Representatives.

This joint resolution provides that the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was ratified by three-fourths of the states and is therefore a valid constitutional amendment, regardless of any time limit that was in the original proposal.

Article V sets forth procedures for amending the Constitution with the text addressing the proposal and ratification of amendments. Congress and the states have the sole authority of the amendment process.

Originally drafted in 1921 by leaders of the suffrage movement, the Equal Rights Amendment has faced more than a century of struggle, one that continues today.

The Equal Rights Amendment was first introduced in 1923 by Republican Congressman Daniel Anthony of Kansas, the nephew of suffragist Susan B. Anthony. The Republican Party platform endorsed the ERA beginning in 1940. Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon and Ford all supported the ERA. In 1980, the Republican platform dropped support for the ERA when Ronald Reagan was nominated. In 1982, the ERA arbitrary timeline lapsed before the final three states ratified due mainly to Republican opposition. A gender gap in voting emerged in the next election cycle when many women voters started shifting support to the Democrats and away from Republicans, a trend that has continued to the 2024 elections.

Support for the ERA is as strong as ever.

Polls and surveys conducted since 2020, when Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the ERA, and those done over the past decade, find an overwhelming majority of Americans favor adding the ERA to the Constitution.

• A growing number of Americans, regardless of political party affiliation, say the United States has not gone far enough in giving women equal rights with men with polls reporting from 69% to 85% support for the Equal Rights Amendment.
• Voters want congressional action — such as the Joint Resolutions in the current Congress — to affirm the ERA is part of the Constitution.