(Headline USA) A group of House Democrats were expelled from the Senate on Thursday after they barged into the chamber to protest in favor of the Equal Rights Amendment.
The Senate was in the middle of voting on whether to remove the deadline that prevents the proposed constitutional amendment from being ratified when a group of House Democrats, led by Reps. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., and Cori Bush, D-Mo., staged an insurrection and stormed into the chamber.
“Gender equality can’t wait, there should be no deadline for that,” Pressley said in a video taken before they entered the Senate chamber. “We’re going to go in here, look at our Senate colleagues and demand they do the right thing by the women of this country.”
Bush added: “The House is standing, saying to the Senate: ‘We need you to make the ERA happen today. ERA now.”
The lawmakers chanted, “What do we want? ERA! When do we want it? Now!” as they walked through Congress.
One Democrat even seemed to suggest that the goal was to be forcibly removed in order to make a scene.
“I’m getting kicked out. I’m not even in the area. We have a lot of rules around here, but listen, we’re getting expelled out of here, we just left where they don’t have enough votes to pass the ERA,” said Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa.
After the House Democrats interrupted the Senate’s proceedings, the sergeant at arms was called to remove them since they had not been given authorization to be on the Senate floor.
The ERA was a proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution first drafted in 1923 and passed by Congress in 1973. It did not receive enough support from the states within its seven-year expiration.
