States too late to ratify the 'Equal Rights Amendment' judge rules

(NBC) – Friday marked a defeat for supporters of a 50-year-old amendment.

In a ruling that will likely send the case here to the Supreme Court, a federal district court judge ruled late Friday that recent state votes to ratify the proposed Equal Rights Amendment came too late to make it part of the Constitution.

Along with Illinois and Nevada, Virginia argued that the Constitution does not give Congress any power to set a time limit on the ratification process.

But Judge Rudolph Contreras disagreed, saying their vote “came after both the original and extended deadlines that Congress attached to the ERA,” adding that his ruling was a matter of procedural time limit and not of the policy itself.

The states now have the option of appealing the ruling.

Originally proposed in 1972, the ERA passed overwhelmingly in both houses of Congress, and endorsed by President Richard Nixon.

The ERA would amend the Constitution to add this provision: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex.”

It would also give Congress power to pass laws enforcing the provision.