By a vote of 26-14, the Virginia Senate passed a resolution on Tuesday to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), with the Commonwealth closer to becoming the 38th state in the U.S. to do so. Seven Republicans joined all 19 of the upper chamber’s Democrats in supporting Senate Joint Resolution 284, sponsored by Senator Glen Sturtevant (R-Richmond), who joined a bus tour promoting the legislation last year.
According to the joint resolution, “the 1972 Equal Rights Amendment remains viable and may be ratified notwithstanding the expiration of the 10-year ratification period set out in the resolving clause, as amended, in the proposal adopted by Congress.”
The legislation will now go to the Republican-controlled House of Delegates, with supporters of the ERA claiming that Virginia’s vote would add it to the U.S. Constitution as the 28th Amendment. However, opponents say the deadline for ratification expired in 1982, and argue that the amendment would have unintended consequences that are detrimental to women.
In 2011, the Senate voted 24-16 on Senate Joint Resolution 357 to ratify the ERA, also “notwithstanding the expiration of the 10-year ratification period.”
A second resolution was passed in 2012, with a vote of 24-15 on Senate Joint Resolution 130. It was passed for a third time in 2014, with a 25-8 vote on Senate Joint Resolution 78. A fourth time occurred in 2015 with a 20-19 vote on Senate Joint Resolution 216. A subsequent fifth time happened in 2016 in a 21-19 vote on Senate Joint Resolution 1.
Regardless of the resolution’s passage in the upper chamber, the House of Delegates, which has been led by the GOP during all of the previous votes, has left the ERA bill without a chance to be passed.
Now, however, Democrats in the House have come close to having the upper hand in the legislature as they erased the GOP’s 66-member majority in the 2017 statewide elections. There is now just a 51-48 split in the House in favor of Republicans in the short, 46-day session in Richmond.