9th Circuit: Equal Rights Amendment is not in the Constitution

Valame alleges that the MSSA’s requirement that men, but not women, register with the Selective Service System violates his rights under the Equal Rights Amendment (“ERA”), which Valame contends was ratified as the Twenty-Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. However, the ERA was not ratified by three-fourths of the States prior to the deadline set by Congress, June 30, 1982, and the Archivist of the United States did not publish or certify the ERA. See Illinois v. Ferriero, 60 F.4th 704, 710-13 (D.C. Cir. 2023). Therefore, the district court properly dismissed Valame’s claims under the ERA for failure to state a plausible claim. See Somers v. Apple, Inc., 729 F.3d 953, 959 (9th Cir. 2013) (explaining that dismissal “under Rule 12(b)(6) is proper when the complaint either (1) lacks a cognizable legal theory or (2) fails to allege sufficient facts to support a cognizable legal theory”).