Outgoing chief archivist at center of ERA fight and Trump documents controversy

Recent controversies over the certification of the Equal Rights Amendment and improper record-keeping of Trump-era documents have pushed the nation's chief archivist, whose typical pro forma responsibilities render him unknown to all but the most knowledgeable Washingtonians, into the middle of several high-profile political dramas.

David Ferriero, who's set to retire in April, has been the head of the National Archives and Records Administration since 2009, where his duties typically entail overseeing the agency's three dozen facilities around the US that hold more than 13 billion pages of documents. His role is also to formally add amendments to the US Constitution -- which hasn't been put to use during his tenure, as the Constitution hasn't been amended since 1992.

Still, he's become a key figure for many progressives who are leaning on Ferriero to take the drastic step of interpreting a dispute — and thus directly contradict legal guidance issued by the Justice Department and a federal judge's opinion that the deadline for ratifying the ERA expired — about the status of the ERA and add it as the nation's 28th Amendment. Ferriero has made no public indication that he is willing to do so.