The Democratic attorneys general in the three states that ratified the Equal Rights Amendment long after a deadline set by Congress expired are set to unveil litigation over the proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution.Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring’s office announced Wednesday that he was partnering with fellow Democratic attorneys general Kwame Raoul of Illinois and Aaron Ford of Nevada on “landmark civil rights litigation concerning the Equal Rights Amendment.”A spokeswoman for Herring declined further comment on the lawsuit ahead of a press conference scheduled for Thursday.The press conference will come after Virginia earlier in the week became the critical 38th state to ratify the measure, which would prohibit discrimination based on sex. Herring has previously said he would go to court if necessary to see that the measure is adopted in the Constitution.On Tuesday, the National Archives and Records Administration confirmed it had received Virginia’s ratification documentation but said the archivist would “take no action to certify the adoption of the Equal Rights Amendment.”Typically, constitutional amendments must be ratified by three-quarters of the states, or 38. But the ERA’s future is uncertain, in part because of a 1982 deadline for ratification that Congress enacted decades ago. Many legal observers expect its future to be determined in the courts.Nevada and Illinois were the next-most recent states to ratify the ERA: Nevada in 2017 and Illinois in 2018.
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