skip to main content
skip to newscasts

Monday, March 18, 2024

Public News Service Logo
facebook instagram linkedin reddit youtube twitter
view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

SD public defense duties shift from counties to state; SCOTUS appears skeptical of restricting government communications with social media companies; Trump lawyers say he can't make bond; new scholarships aim to connect class of 2024 to high-demand jobs.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

The SCOTUS weighs government influence on social media, and who groups like the NRA can do business with. Biden signs an executive order to advance women's health research and the White House tells Israel it's responsible for the Gaza humanitarian crisis.

view newscast page
play newscast audioPlay

Midwest regenerative farmers are rethinking chicken production, Medicare Advantage is squeezing the finances of rural hospitals and California's extreme swing from floods to drought has some thinking it's time to turn rural farm parcels into floodplains.

Virginia Equal Rights Amendment Supporters Vow to Push Forward

play audio
Play

Friday, February 22, 2019   

RICHMOND, Va. - Republicans in Virginia's House of Delegates succeeded in stopping a Democratic-led effort to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment by a single vote.

The proposed amendment would establish gender equality as a principle in the U.S. Constitution. Although it had the support of two Republicans at the beginning, an effort to change House rules to bring the amendment to the floor for a vote was stopped by GOP leaders. That ended its chances of a vote in the House of Delegates this session.

Supporter Katherine Jordan, who volunteers with the group VAratifyERA, said she hoped the state would have been the 38th to ratify the amendment.

"It would've been incredibly fitting to have done it this year, because it's the 400th anniversary of our General Assembly," she said, "and instead, what we're left with is a session really marred by scandal and division."

The House Republican leaders who blocked passage of the ERA said it would lead to looser restrictions on abortions, which the group VAratifyERA denied.

If supporters of the amendment had succeeded in getting Virginia to be the 38th state, the ERA would have cleared the three-fourths threshold that an amendment must pass in order to be added to the federal Constitution.

Jordan vowed it will happen as she looked back at other resistance to equal protections and voting rights.

"The Equal Rights Amendment will be added to the Constitution, but the real tragedy for Virginia is to miss being on the right side of history when, too many times, we have not been," she said. "We fought the 14th Amendment, we fought integration, we fought interracial marriage, we fought the 19th Amendment."

In order for the ERA to move forward, Congress would need to retroactively remove the ratification deadline and any future state's approval. Some supporters have proposed starting over with "fresh start" amendments that would get rid of deadlines altogether.

The text of SJ 284 is online at lis.virginia.gov, and background information and the "Fresh Start" amendment are at fas.org.


get more stories like this via email

more stories
Corporate partners sign contracts to offer a graduate assistantship and pay the students. In turn, MSU pays the graduate assistant's tuition, fees and salary, so the assistantship is directly tied to the academic experience. (pressmaster/Adobe Stock)

play sound

By Victoria Lim for WorkingNation.Broadcast version by Farah Siddiqi for Missouri News Service reporting for the WorkingNation-Public News Service Col…


Social Issues

play sound

A new report brands Connecticut's tax system as "regressive" for low- to middle-income residents and uses a report from the state to make its point…

Environment

play sound

Backers of a new federal rule said it will increase fairness for livestock and poultry producers, in North Carolina and across the country. The U.S…


A study by the advocacy group Inseparable showed one in five adults said at any given time, they consider their mental health to be either 'fair' or 'poor.' (Adobe Stock)

Health and Wellness

play sound

Mental health care advocates are encouraging federal agencies to adopt a proposed update to regulations which would expand access to psychological car…

Social Issues

play sound

With hotter summers bringing hotter working conditions, the Maryland Department of Labor is implementing a heat stress standard to protect workers …

Social Issues

play sound

By Jimmy Cloutier for OpenSecrets.Broadcast version by Roz Brown for Texas News Service reporting for the OpenSecrets-Public News Service Collaboratio…

Environment

play sound

Recreational fishermen in New England say commercial trawlers are threatening the survival of smaller businesses relying on a healthy stock of Atlanti…

 

Phone: 303.448.9105 Toll Free: 888.891.9416 Fax: 208.247.1830 Your trusted member- and audience-supported news source since 1996 Copyright © 2021