Updated March 17 at 2:42 p.m. PT.
By a vote of 222 to 204, the U.S. House passed H.J. Res 17, a bi-partisan joint resolution to remove an arbitrary timeline for ERA ratification. (Screenshot from C-SPAN)
Two critically important women’s rights bills passed in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday: the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) and the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). They now head to the Senate.
“We are now one Senate floor vote away from adding the ERA into the Constitution and reauthorizing VAWA so that our generation and all future generations will not face persistent sex discrimination and violence, but rather will have new opportunities under the law,” said Ellie Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation and long-time ERA leader.