Senate GOP blocks Equal Rights Amendment

Senate Republicans on Thursday blocked a measure that would have allowed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to be added to the Constitution.

Senators voted 51 to 47 to invoke cloture on a motion to proceed, falling short of the 60 votes it it needed. 

Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine) were the lone Republicans to vote with every Democrat. 

The ERA passed Congress in 1972, having been first proposed in 1923. Constitutional amendments, under U.S. law, must be ratified by three-quarters of all state legislatures, meaning 38 states. 

In 2020, Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the ERA, but it did so after the 1982 deadline to ratify the amendment had passed.