ERA Still Not Passed: sad and shocking

E.R.A. - You would think this stands for "Ever Really Amendable?"

In fact E.R.A. stands for the "Equal Rights Amendment" which was brought before Congress in 1923.

It still hasn't passed. No need to do the math. I did (and double-checked with a calculator!).

EIGHTY-SEVEN YEARS!?! And this has yet to be passed.

What is it, you ask? It is as follows:

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification. (taken from here)

That is it. In its entirety. 

Simple enough, right? But it has still not passed :( 

It was written by Alice Paul in 1923 and presented (and defeated) in Congress for nearly the next 50 years. 

Then, on March 22, 1972, it passed the House and Senate. The next step: have it ratified by 38 states, the 2/3 vote required to pass any amendment into law. 

They states were given 7 years to ratify it and when the goal had yet to be met, Congress extended the deadline until June of 1982. Sadly, even with the extra time, the goal was never met. 

They were so close; 35 states ratified the ERA. The 15 states who have yet to ratify it are below:

• Alabama
• Arizona
• Arkansas
• Florida
• Georgia
• Illinois
• Louisiana
• Mississippi
• Missouri
• Nevada
• North Carolina
• Oklahoma
• South Carolina
• Utah 
• Virginia

But hope remains. They didn't give up.


From its defeat in 1982 until his death last year, Senator Ted Kennedy was the lead sponsor for this bill, continuing to bring it forth in Congress. But this is not just a Democrat thing. It is fully bi-partisan, as seen in the teamwork of the new lead sponsors: Judy Biggert, R-IL and Carolyn Maloney, D-NY.


So why do we need this anyways?

Many claim that the 14th amendment with the Equal Protection Clause took care of what the ERA is trying to address. 

If one only read Section 1 of the 14th amendment (where the Equal Protection Clause comes from), it would seem that, yes, there is no need for the ERA. However, if you haven't already, go back and read Section 2 of the 14th amendment.

I hope you noticed the word "male." Basically, Section 2 is a direct contradiction of Section 1, in that it says it will defend all MEN - not citizens - in their right to vote. Women are completely left out.

It is for that very reason that the First Wave of the women's movement became so wrapped up in the right of women to vote which was eventually passed in 1920 with the 19th amendment.

But that only guaranteed women a vote. It did not guarantee ALL of their rights. Thus, just a few years later in 1923, Alice Paul wrote the ERA in an attempt to prevent any more Section 2s like the one found in the 14th amendment which would exclude women in the protection of their rights.

Note, however, that the ERA does not exclude men of this protection. It is gender-neutral in that is simply says the equality of rights should not be denied "on account of sex" whether female or male.

Not to be a broken record, but 87 years later, this is still not a U.S. law.

However, because I am an optimist, I would like to provide encouragement by turning your attention to our Constitution's most recent amendment. This amendment, the 27th passed in 1992, states that any pay changes Congress makes for themselves cannot take effect until the next term.

Like the ERA, this seems simple enough, right?

Wrong. If you noticed the date it was proposed, 1789 (yes that is a 7; I did not make a typo), it seems Congress struggled with this simple decision for 203 years.

So clearly sensible bills can eventually get passed.

But I hope we don't have to wait another century or so before we can have equal rights guaranteed to all U.S. citizens regardless of their gender. Here again is the Equal Rights Amendment:

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

If you agree with this amendment, please call or email or even write a letter to your local congress man or woman and insist that we finally make this a law. 

Information I have listed on the ERA and more can be found here. In addition, in researching this, particularly the amendments, I found this very cool website. It even has pictures you can zoom in on of the actual handwritten documents. I highly encourage y'all to peruse both of these sites.