President Joe Biden announced on Friday that he considers the Equal Rights Amendment to have been ratified. His statement “affirm[ed] what I believe and what three-fourths of the states have ratified: the 28th Amendment is the law of the land,

The ERA’s deadline expired decades ago, but the president argues that recent approvals by three states put the amendment over the top.

Presidents have no direct role in approving constitutional amendments. So what could President Biden’s pronouncement recognizing a new one actually do?

President Joe Biden declared on Friday that he was making the Equal Rights Amendment official. “It is long past time to recognize the will of the American people,” he said in his announcement ( via the Associated Press ).