The Equal Rights Amendment: Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. Section 3. This amendment shall go into effect two years after the date of ratification.

The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), first proposed in 1923, was approved by Congress in 1972 and sent to the states with a seven-year deadline for ratification. At an extended deadline of June 30, 1982, the ERA had only 35 of the necessary 38 state ratifications. The amendment has been reintroduced in every session of Congress since then. In the past decade, a "three-state strategy" has evolved as an alternative ratification process.
ERA: Strategy for Ratification

The Equal Rights Amendment: Simple Justice-It’s TIME!
by Jean Landweber, ERA Campaign Coordinator for Wisconsin

Wisconsin's Struggle for the Equal Rights Amendment

A state-by-state listing of those that have ratified the Equal Rights Amendment and whether or not they have a state ERA (Wisconsin does not have one, but did vote to ratify the ERA).

The National Organization for Women has a chronology of the ERA from 1923 - 1996 posted on their website.

For more information on ongoing efforts to ratify the ERA and other news, sources include:

• ERA Campaign Network and the
• Equal Rights Task Force of the National Council of Women's Organizations.

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