North Dakota senators turn down Equal Rights Amendment rollback

North Dakota senators narrowly rejected a proposal backing away from the state's support of the Equal Rights Amendment Monday, amid a renewed national push to amend the U.S. Constitution.

The proposal sought to clarify that North Dakota's 1975 ratification of the ERA, which is aimed at a level legal playing field between women and men, expired in 1979. Backers said fully ratifying the ERA now would make a "mockery" of the process and have consequences unforeseen by prior lawmakers.

Sen. Judy Lee, R-West Fargo, rejected "fear-mongering and misleading statements about the ERA," stating that it's not about abortion or gender identity issues. She said she worked on ratifying the ERA in the 1970s and noted that it simply says that equal rights under the law "shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex."

"We all owe a great deal to the women and the men who worked hard to raise people's awareness of the issues and who supported the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment," Lee said, calling the rollback resolution "a sharp stick in the eye of everyone who worked hard over the past 45 years to make laws more fair to men and women."

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