The ERA, hotly controversial in the 1970s, should be an easy lift today

Several Republicans in Congress are adamant women are not to receive equal treatment

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Editorials

February 22, 2022 - 9:46 AM

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra/Unsplash

After all the epic upheaval in the 1970s over the Equal Rights Amendment, some are arguing that the constitutional amendment declaring, simply, that women must be afforded the same rights as men officially became law last month — two years after Virginia ratified it and put it over the 38-state threshold for addition to the Constitution.

Or not.

As galling as it might sound that even in 2022, a handful of Republican senators have moved to make sure the ERA isn’t stamped into law, there are in fact some remaining issues that need to be resolved.

There are questions about whether Congress can retroactively waive a decades-old deadline that was missed, and whether some states that have rescinded their ratification had the power to do that. Those issues can and should be addressed — and then this long-overdue amendment should, finally, be enshrined in the Constitution.

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