Washington legislature ratifies Equal Rights amendment to U.S. Constitution (which fails nationally) on March 22, 1973.

  • By Greg Lange
  • Posted 2/23/2003
  • HistoryLink.org Essay 5279

On March 22, 1973, the Washington Legislature ratifies the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. However, to change the United States constitution, a yes vote by two-thirds of the states is required. The national Equal Rights amendment falls just short of this and it fails to be enacted.

Unlike the United States constitution, Washington's state constitution contains an Equal Rights amendment, passed in 1972, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in all areas of public life. Voters approved the amendment to the state constitution in November 1972.


Sources:

Don Duncan, Washington: the First One Hundred Years, 1889-1989 (Seattle: The Seattle Times, 1989), 106; Janine A. Parry, "Putting Feminism to a Vote: The Washington State Women's Council, 1963-78," Pacific Northwest Quarterly Vol. 91, No. 4 (Fall 2000), p. 172.


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