Senate Republicans block Equal Rights Amendment: report

The United States Senate on Thursday failed to clear a procedural hurdle to passing the Equal Rights Amendment, despite a century-long push to codify gender protections into law.

"With a 51-47 vote in favor, Senate Democrats and supporters were nine votes shy of the 60 needed for a resolution to clear the 100-member chamber's filibuster hurdle," Reuters explained. "The resolution would have removed a 1982 deadline for state ratification that prevented the Equal Rights Amendment from going into effect. Three states -- Nevada, Illinois and Virginia -- approved it after 1982."

Senator Ben Cardin (D-Maryland), who has led the fight for the ERA's passage, lamented the setback but vowed to continue the effort.

READ MORE: The states have ratified the Equal Rights Amendment. Democrats should take it over the finish line

"This is not the end," Cardin said. "We lost this vote. We are gonna win this fight."

Cardin also remarked that "I think we all felt that this would be ratified. We didn't know how long it would take, but we knew this would happen," adding that "it's very frustrating, no question about it."

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) also expressed his disappointment, telling reporters that "to the horror of hundreds of millions of American people, women in America have far fewer rights today than they did even a year ago."

As noted by The Washington Post, "The Equal Rights Amendment would be the 28th Amendment to the Constitution, enshrining a protection against sex discrimination. Cardin’s resolutionsought to remove a deadline for states to ratify the amendment that Congress created in 1972 and extended once. But in an interview with The Washington Post ahead of the vote, Cardin already anticipated difficulty getting enough Republicans to vote for his resolution — creating a sense of disappointment for the senator that it was easier to build a large bipartisan coalition to support an amendment against sex discrimination in 1972 than it has been in 2023."

READ MORE: 'A truly historic moment': Virginia finally passes the Equal Rights Amendment — 50 years after Congress did

Reuters' report continues at this link. The Washington Post's article is here (subscription required).