US: Joe Biden urges Congress to act now on Equal Rights Amendment

President Joe Biden on Thursday called on Congress to immediately enshrine the Equal Rights Amendment in the U.S. Constitution and formally protect women's rights nearly a century after lawmakers first raised them.

In a statement, Biden urged Congress "to pass a resolution recognizing ratification of the ERA," saying recent legal analysis showed there was nothing preventing lawmakers from acting.

The Democratic president's call comes amid jostling over the deadline to enact the ERA, which passed Congress in 1972 with a 1982 deadline to be enacted if 38 state legislatures voted to approve. Nearly 100 years have passed since it was