Equal Rights Amendment Backers Defeated in D.C. Court Appeal (2)

Federal courts can’t order that the Equal Rights Amendment be published as part of the Constitution because its backers failed to prove indisputably that a congressional deadline set for states to ratify it isn’t legally valid or binding, a D.C. federal appeals court ruled.

The Tuesday decision is a big loss for ERA supporters, including the state attorneys general of Illinois and Nevada, who sued the US archivist to demand publication of the measure as the 28th Amendment.

The states failed to show why the 1979 deadline that Congress set for three-fourths of states to ratify the amendment should be ...