<P> In Washington, D.C., protesters presented a sympathetic Senate leadership with a petition for the Equal Rights Amendment at the U.S. Capitol . Influential news sources such as Time also supported the cause of the protestors . Soon after the strike took place, activists distributed literature across the country as well . In 1970, congressional hearings began on the ERA . </P> <P> On August 10, 1970, Michigan Democrat Martha Griffiths successfully brought Alice Paul's ERA to the House Floor, after fifteen years of bringing the joint resolution to the House Judiciary Committee without success . The joint resolution passed in the House and continued on to the Senate, which voted for the ERA with an added clause that women would be exempt from the military . That session of Congress, however, ended before the joint resolution could progress any further . </P> <P> Griffiths reintroduced the ERA, and achieved success on Capitol Hill with her House Joint Resolution No. 208, which was adopted by the House on October 12, 1971, with a vote of 354 yeas (For), 24 nays (Against) and 51 not voting . Griffiths' joint resolution was then adopted by the Senate--without change--on March 22, 1972, by a vote of 84 yeas, 8 nays and 7 not voting . The Senate version, drafted by Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana, passed after the defeat of an amendment proposed by Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina that would have exempted women from the draft . President Richard Nixon immediately endorsed the ERA's approval upon its passage by the 92nd Congress . </P> <P> Contemporary movement on the ERA began in 2013, when Senators Ben Cardin (D - Maryland) and Mark Kirk (R - Illinois), along with Representative Jackie Speier (D - California), introduced identical joint resolutions in both the U.S. Senate and House chambers to remove the ratification deadline altogether . Currently, the legislation continues to gain co-sponsors in both chambers in anticipation of completion of the amendment's ratification process at the state level . </P>

When was the equal rights amendment passed by congress
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