ERA (?)
I was going to post about this, but will need someone much smarter than me to explain it in layman's terms... something something about the archivist
in order for an amendment to be added to the constitution, it needs to a) be passed by 2/3 of both chambers of Congress, and then 2) be ratified by 3/4 of state legislatures within "a reasonable amount of time". congress did the first half way back in 1972. the issue is that "a reasonable amount of time" is not defined in the Constitution. congress typically attaches an arbitrary deadline of 7 years. by 1979, the required 3/4 of states had not ratified. it wasn't until VA ratified in 2020 (!) that the threshold was met, long after the "expiry date." the trump administration determined that the ERA amendment was "expired" and thus not valid. this put a chill on any parties who were willing to bring up the question of arbitrary expiry dates not being mandated in the Constitution.
today, biden stated that the ERA "is the law of the land" indicating that he considers it ratified. this means exactly nothing from a legal standpoint, but ERA supporters are hoping that this might give a push to those willing to argue in favor of the 28th amendment, push for the Archivist to formally publish it thus kicking off its entry into force, etc.
that won't happen, at least not for the next 4 years: trump opposed the ERA in his first admin, and he (aka his DOJ) will opposed it in his second. that the ERA hasn't become a constitutional amendment is 100% on the Republicans: GOP state legislations either blocked or dragged their feet on ratification, running out the clock on the 7 year "expiry date". at least 5 red states have attempted to rescind their previous ratifications. twice in 2023 the GOP blocked the senate from in passing laws that would have (or tried to) get around the expiry date. from what i've read, the most common stated reason why conservatives opposed the ERA is that women are already protected under the 14th amendment, so the ERA is redundant, a waste of resource, virtue signaling, etc.
tl;dr: biden said something symbolic that got the ERA hopeful excited, but ultimately means nothing.*apologies to the lawyers here, please feel free to correct me