President Biden on Friday declared that he believes that the Equal Rights Amendment has met the requirements of ratification and is now part of the Constitution, moving just days before leaving office to try to enshrine sex equality as a basic principle.
“In keeping with my oath and duty to Constitution and country, I affirm what I believe and what three-fourths of the states have ratified: The 28th Amendment is the law of the land, guaranteeing all Americans equal rights and protections under the law regardless of their sex,” Mr. Biden said in a statement.
But it was not immediately clear what the impact of his declaration would be. Under the Constitution, the president has no direct role in approving amendments, and his statement had no legal force by itself.
The archivist of the United States, a Biden appointee, has said she would not publish the amendment, on the grounds that it had not met the requirements to become part of the Constitution. And Mr. Biden declined to order her to finalize the process with the amendment’s publication.
Here’s what his declaration could mean.
The 28th Amendment is still in limbo.
The status of the Equal Rights Amendment was already a matter of dispute. Under the Constitution, adding an amendment requires approval by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, a step that occurred more than 50 years ago. It also takes ratification by three-quarters of the states, which did not happen until 2020, when Virginia became the 38th state to do so.
But there was a wrinkle. When Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972, it laid out a seven-year deadline for ratification by the states, which was subsequently extended to 10 years. But by 1982, only 35 states had ratified it.