The president announced the ratification days before leaving office.
President Joe Biden on Jan. 17 announced he has ratified the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), despite the U.S. archivist recently saying the president could not ratify the constitutional amendment.
“It is long past time to recognize the will of the American people,” Bien said in a statement. “In keeping with my oath and duty to Constitution and country, I affirm what I believe and what three-fourths of the states have ratified: the 28th Amendment is the law of the land, guaranteeing all Americans equal rights and protections under the law regardless of their sex.”
Biden pointed to how Virginia in 2020 became the 38th state to ratify the ERA, which would prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender.
The U.S. archivist and U.S. deputy archivist said in late 2024 that the president could not ratify the amendment because the amendment did not receive the required support from three-fourths of the states by the deadline Congress imposed, which was June 30, 1982.
The Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel in 2020, while Donald Trump was president, and in 2022, after Biden took office, also said that ratification cannot occur unless Congress or the courts extend or remove the ratification deadline.
However, the American Bar Association (ABA) is among the organizations that have offered a different view: that Virginia’s ratification was sufficient to meet the three-quarters requirement, and the deadline is not relevant.
“I agree with the ABA and with leading legal constitutional scholars that the Equal Rights Amendment has become part of our Constitution,” Biden said.
This is a developing story that will be updated.
