By Emily Stewart, May 31, 2018<\/p>\n
If one more state ratifies the Equal Rights Amendment, it could make it into the Constitution \u2014 maybe.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s taken 45 years for 37 states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, with Illinois\u2019s vote on Wednesday to do so leaving it one short of the 38 states needed to enshrine a formal amendment in the US Constitution.<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s a legal debate raging about whether the deadline to ratify the amendment guaranteeing equal rights to women passed decades ago or if there\u2019s a possible legal workaround.<\/p>\n
Still, an unclear future is the brightest prospect for the amendment in decades. The amendment, which guarantees that \u201cequality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex,\u201d passed Congress on a bipartisan basis in 1972, became a culture war battleground, and then, until last year, lay dormant, presumed to be a lost cause.<\/p>\n
Its revival comes in the midst of the #MeToo<\/a> movement, the Women\u2019s March<\/a>, and a moment of a sort of reawakening of feminism and women\u2019s activism in America. Women are running for office at record rates in 2018<\/a>, and Donald Trump\u2019s victory \u2014 and Hillary Clinton\u2019s loss \u2014 in 2016 has spurred a new wave of women finding their voices and insisting on equality. That\u2019s translated not just to new causes but to the revival of old ones: For decades, Indiana, which ratified the amendment in 1977, was the 35th and last state to sign on. Then last year, Nevada became the 36th.<\/p>\n The Equal Rights Amendment dates back to the 1920s and came about after the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. It was first introduced by suffragist leader Alice Paul in 1923, and it has three simple parts:<\/p>\n The amendment gained momentum in the 1960s and \u201970s, culminating with passage in the US Senate and the House of Representatives in 1972, which put it on track to become what would have been the 27th Amendment of the Constitution. It was sent to the states for ratification and put on a seven-year deadline.<\/p>\n Support was, initially, bipartisan and broad. In the first year after the amendment was passed<\/a>, 22 states ratified it.<\/p>\n But opposition began to organize, led by anti-feminist conservative leader Phyllis Schlafly<\/a>, who argued the ERA would erase legal differences between men and women and would lead to an America<\/a> where men wouldn\u2019t be required to support their wives, anyone could walk into any bathroom, women could be drafted, and same-sex marriage would be legalized. Schlafly died<\/a> in 2016 at the age of 92.<\/p>\n \u201cSince the women are the ones who bear the babies, and there\u2019s nothing we can do about that, our laws and customs then make it the financial obligation of the husband to provide the support,\u201d Schlafly said in 1973<\/a>. \u201cIt is his obligation and his sole obligation. And this is exactly and precisely what we will lose if the Equal Rights Amendment is passed.\u201d<\/p>\n Schlafly\u2019s line of attack caught on, as did others \u2014 that the ERA\u2019s passage would expand abortion rights, that it would infringe on states\u2019 rights, that it would be costly to businesses. Indiana became the 35th state to ratify the ERA in 1977. Then its momentum stalled.<\/p>\n The ERA sat at the 35-state ratification level for more than four decades until 2017, when Nevada<\/a> lawmakers approved it, becoming the 36th. On Wednesday, Illinois became the 37th.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had an amazing amount of energy this year, more than any year that we\u2019ve seen,\u201d said Eden Nissani, outreach coordinator for Illinois state Rep. Lou Lang, who sponsored the resolution in the House.<\/p>\n Activists point to a number of factors contributing to the ERA\u2019s 21st-century revival.<\/p>\n Roberta Madden, the co-president of the ERA-NC Alliance in North Carolina, pointed to the #MeToo<\/a> movement as one explanation. \u201cThere\u2019s been a lot more interest and a lot more attention in the news media about some of the wrongs against women and the inequalities that we face,\u201d Madden, who has worked on the issue for 46 years, told me. \u201cThat\u2019s focused the attention in a way that it hasn\u2019t before.\u201d<\/p>\n Nissan said she believes Equal Means Equal<\/em><\/a>, a 2016 documentary about women\u2019s inequality that makes the case for the ERA, contributed. The documentary\u2019s director, Kamala Lopez, and Nevada state Sen. Pat Spearman, who championed the ERA\u2019s ratification there, traveled to Illinois in May to push for the ERA. In Illinois, Nissan said some 50 organizations in Illinois worked together to pressure lawmakers across the state to ratify the resolution, and lawmakers who had resisted it in the past were persuaded.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of these Republican representatives couldn\u2019t argue against it,\u201d she said, adding that a number of Illinois Republican lawmakers are also retiring. \u201cThey didn\u2019t have to be worried about precautions of what would happen in the next general assembly because they\u2019re not going to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is about who we are as people. This is about who we believe the state of Illinois is and should be, going forward,\u201d Illinois Republican Rep. Steve Andersson told the Chicago Tribune<\/a>.<\/p>\n Of course, not everyone was on board. Rep. Peter Breen, also a Republican, told the Tribune<\/a>the ERA was an \u201calleged constitutional amendment\u201d that, if adopted, would be an \u201cillegal act.\u201d He propagated many of the beliefs that have dogged the ERA for years \u2014 namely, that it will expand abortions, which supporters of the ERA say is false.<\/p>\n Carol Robles-Roman, co-president of the ERA Coalition, a group that advocates for the passage and ratification of the ERA, said the issue of constitutional equality for women is one that has been \u201csimmering for a while\u201d and she hopes its latest momentum will stick. \u201cThe ERA has had momentum, and the #MeToo movement and Time\u2019s Up, the messaging of both, really showed that we need an ERA,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople are realizing that women don\u2019t have constitutional equality.\u201d<\/p>\n Activists are looking to a number of candidates to become the 38th and final state to ratify the ERA. There are 13 possibilities: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and Virginia.<\/p>\n Robles-Roman pointed to Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia, and Madden said Arizona and Florida were on her radar as well.<\/p>\n Virginia got close to ratifying<\/a> the ERA earlier this year, but the GOP-controlled legislature ultimately rejected it. A House committee refused to take it up, and a Senate panel defeated it 9 to 5. Men cast all of the no votes.<\/p>\n Still, supporters there and across the country remain hopeful. \u201cIt\u2019s been a long time coming,\u201d Madden said. \u201cMany of us have been working in the trenches on this for a long, long time.\u201d<\/p>\n A 38th state ratifying the ERA wouldn\u2019t be the end of it. It\u2019s 36 years past the deadline Congress set for it to become a constitutional amendment: Congress originally set a 1979 deadline, and when that date hit, the amendment only had 35 ratifications. Congress extended the deadline to 1982, but it missed that as well.<\/p>\n Still, there are some potential workarounds.<\/p>\n A 2013 report by the Congressional Research Service<\/a> said Congress could just vote to change the previous deadline.<\/p>\n Rep. Jackie Speier<\/a> (D-CA) and Sen. Ben Cardin<\/a> (D-MD) have introduced legislation that would remove the ratification deadline for the ERA. \u201cIf Congress, by majority vote, said that the deadline was \u201982, then Congress by majority vote could say that the deadline is many years from now,\u201d Jane Mansbridge, a Harvard professor and the author of Why We Lost the ERA<\/em><\/a>, said in a March interview with the Harvard Kennedy School PolicyCast<\/em>.<\/p>\n Supporters of the ERA also point to the \u201cMadison Amendment<\/a>.\u201d In 1789, James Madison first proposed that Congress shouldn\u2019t be allowed to give itself a raise \u2014 any pay increases wouldn\u2019t take effect until the next congressional term began. Six states had ratified the amendment by 1792. Then the effort stalled for 190 years. An undergraduate student, Gregory Watson, in 1982 figured out that the amendment could still be ratified and started what would eventually be a successful grassroots campaign to ratify, in 1992, the 27th Amendment.<\/p>\n Some Republicans at the state level supported the ERA in both Illinois and Nevada, and its supporters hope that many of the myths and misconceptions about it have dissipated. It was, at least initially, a bipartisan issue in the 1970s, and it could be again. \u201cI think the issue of women\u2019s equality is pretty bipartisan,\u201d Robles-Rom\u00e1n said.<\/p>\n And beyond what\u2019s likely to pass, supporters of the ERA say it\u2019s needed. \u201cEven though we have some laws that have been passed to protect women, those laws can be struck down, watered down, not enforced,\u201d Madden said, pointing to a Wisconsin equal pay law that was repealed<\/a> by the state\u2019s Republicans in 2012. \u201cUntil we get equal rights enshrined in the Constitution, we\u2019re not going to be able to make headway.\u201d<\/p>\nThe Equal Rights Amendment had a lot of momentum behind it in the 1970s, and then it just sort of petered out<\/h3>\n
Nevada ratified the ERA last year. This week, Illinois did too.<\/h3>\n
The ERA has missed its deadline. Supporters argue it could still get another chance.<\/h3>\n