Efforts to make Virginia the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment encountered a setback Tuesday after a subcommittee vote against several resolutions in the state's Republican-controlled Legislature.
Proponents of the gender-equality amendment say ratification by 38 states would meet the U.S. Constitution's threshold for approval. But it would also likely spark battles in the courts and Congress over a long-passed 1982 deadline and various other legal issues.
Measures to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in Virginia were voted down in a subcommittee for the House of Delegates' Privileges and Elections Committee. Proponents say there still may be a chance the measure can be voted out of the full committee Friday.
If that happens, Equal Rights Amendment supporters say they have the votes in the full House to pass to the resolution. The Virginia Senate passed its version last week.
The proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution would outlaw discrimination based on gender. Supporters say that would provide Congress with firmer grounding to pass anti-discrimination laws while giving lawsuits more strength in the courts.
Republican Margaret Ransone, the subcommittee's chairman, said at Tuesday's hearing that the Equal Rights Amendment was "simply not needed" and told young girls in the audience that "you can do anything that you want."
"I don't need words on a piece of paper," Ransone said. "God made us all equal."
Virginia's Equal Rights Amendment opponents also cite the 1982 deadline and the fact that five of the 35 states that ratified it in the 1970s later passed measures to rescind their support -- although there is some question whether states can vote to end support for a constitutional amendment.
Opponents have also raised concerns about an amendment being used to remove restrictions on taxpayer-funded abortion.
But Equal Rights Amendment supporters, who include Republican lawmakers, labeled such criticisms as "fear mongering."
Delegate Jennifer Carroll Foy, a Democratic sponsor of one of the measures, told the subcommittee that the amendment would strengthen protections against gender-based discrimination, particularly in court.
"We want sex-discrimination cases to be analyzed in the same way that the courts analyze race, religion and national origin," she said
Momentum has been growing in statehouses across the country to revive the original Equal Rights Amendment. In the last two years, Nevada and Illinois ratified it, bringing the number of states to 37.
Arkansas was among the 15 states that had not passed the amendment when the deadline was reached in 1982. Subsequent legislative attempts to pass the amendment in Arkansas failed in 2007, 2009 and 2013.
A Section on 01/23/2019