A federal appeals court has affirmed a ruling against Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s attempt to get the Equal Rights Amendment included in the U.S. Constitution – but Raoul says the fight isn’t over yet.
While many states ratified the amendment in the 1970s, Illinois did not do so until 2018, one of three states to ratify the ERA in the past five years.
Raoul says with 38 states now ratifying the amendment; it should be formally certified as part of the Constitution.
But the appeals court upheld a lower court ruling dismissing Raoul’s lawsuit to force that certification.
Raoul now says it’s up to Congress to act; he says the ruling does not prevent Congress from stating that there does not have to be a deadline for ratification, or from accepting the final ratification votes and adding the ERA to the Constitution.
