Unratified states: The ongoing efforts to fight for the ERA
A special report by Kaitlyn Budion
Although the ERA has been ratified in the 38 required states, that doesn’t mean local activists are done with it. Many advocates in unratified states are still pushing to move forward on the landmark legislation. They say they have seen a resurgence of support for the cause with the #MeToo movement, the 2016 election of President Donald Trump and the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
And while the causes driving ratification are similar across the country, the strategies and circumstances vary from state to state. For Virginia, the way to ratification was to flip the legislature, and in Illinois the path was focusing on a bipartisan effort, but that isn’t the case everywhere.
Amy Jo Conroy, a co-founder of ERA Illinois, said in her state ratification was possible because of state politics surrounding the issue of abotion.
Amy Jo Conroy worked on the movement to ratify the ERA in Illinois. Photo courtesy of Amy Jo Conroy.
In 2018, a number of legislators in the Prairie State weren’t running for reelection, so they were less concerned about voting on controversial topics, Conroy said.
There had also just been a debate about abortion, narrowly passing bill HB40. The bill overturned a “trigger” provision in Illinois law that said abortion would be illegal in the state if Roe v. Wade was overturned. It also expanded public funding for abortions. Nevertheless, legislators who opposed HB40 were able to use their vote as evidence they were loyal to the pro-life cause.
That gave them the freedom to support the ERA as a separate issue disconnected from the abortion debate.
“Because people had just taken this really big vote on HB40, they could say to their constituents, ‘Look, you see my record, you see I am pro-life, I am voting for this. The Equal Rights Amendment is unrelated, and I am continuing to be your pro-life candidate,’” Conroy said.
The ratification effort in Illinois was successful due to state-specific politics and a bipartisan effort. Photos courtesy of Amy Jo Conroy.
Across the country in Arizona, Dianne Post has been working on the ERA since the beginning. She was in Wisconsin in the ‘70s, and when she moved to Arizona in the 1980s and realized the state hadn’t ratified yet, she got right to work.
“It makes me angry, frustrated, enraged,” Post said. “People ask me, ‘How do you have so much energy?’ and I say rage.”
But it’s been slow going. Post and ERA Task Force AZ introduced the ERA in nearly every session of the state legislature, but it didn’t go anywhere until 2007, when it was assigned to committee, but the chair refused to hold a hearing for it. A few legislators pushed for it in 2018 and it seemed like it might be the year, but ultimately it didn’t get to the floor.
Anissa Rasheta, one of the leaders of ERA Task Force AZ, said after that they worked to flip the legislature in the 2020 elections. And while the state ultimately went blue for Joe Biden, the state legislature did not.
“We are back to square one. We still are going to keep trying to get Arizona to ratify the ERA — if history tells us anything, that won't happen this year,” Rasheta said. “But that doesn't mean we won't try.”
Dianne Post has been working to get the ERA ratified in Arizona. Photo courtesy of Dianne Post.
The effort to ratify the ERA in Arizona hasn't seen much progress, but that hasn't deterred activists. Photos courtesy of Dianne Post and Anissa Rasheta.
In Missouri, Erica Benson is a high school teacher and the campaign coordinator for the ERA group there, Project 28 MO. Again, Republicans hold a supermajority in the House and the Senate, so the effort has stalled. Advocates had hope in 2018 when they were able to get a committee hearing for the ERA, but were one vote short to move it forward. And when the next year came around and the bill was reintroduced, the committee was unwilling to have another hearing for it.
After the state elections in 2020, the group is reevaluating how to move forward, seeing who might be interested in sponsoring the bill again and what will be the best strategy.
“So we're hoping that on the national level, we can do the work so that the 39th state won't be necessary,” Benson said. “But at some point, we have to keep pushing in Missouri, because all 50 states should ratify the ERA, in our opinion.”
Activists in Missouri continue to work to ratify the ERA in that state. Photos courtesy of Erica Benson.
For Melinda Hamilton, an ERA advocate who works with the organization Equal Means ERA in South Carolina, ratification is just the start of a much-needed conversation about gender equality.
“In South Carolina, our effort grew from wanting to support Illinois and wanting to support Virginia, and making phone calls and writing letters and doing everything we could on their behalf,” Hamilton said. “In a state where the status of women and equality itself very broadly need a great deal of work, a conversation about the Equal Rights Amendment is very important.”
At the start of the year there was progress on a bipartisan bill for ratification in South Carolina. At the time, there were only four female state senators — two Republicans and two Democrats. But all four supported ratifying the ERA, and they made up a Senate Judiciary subcommittee that held a hearing for the ERA and passed the bill out and on to the committee.
But then the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States in earnest, and any progress was lost, as the bill will have to start back at the beginning in the new legislative session. But South Carolina state Sen. Sandy Senn, a Republican, said she doesn’t plan to let that stop it for long. She’s feeling optimistic about their ability to pass it in the coming year.
In South Carolina, ratifying the ERA has bipartisan support, said Melinda Hamilton. Photo courtesy of Melinda Hamilton.
“They're saying that we already have equal rights, that we have it by virtue of case law, and I understand that — but tell me what it hurts?” Senn said. “I don't see what it hurts to make this thing official.”
As a Republican senator, Senn said that party leaders did speak with her about her support of the ERA, but she simply told them she disagreed and did not back down. She said she doesn’t understand why the ERA has become a partisan issue.
“There are things that I think are just ridiculous, that somehow or another, they turn into being partisan issues,” Senn said.
For Sandy Oestreich, the ERA has come a long way in the time she has worked on it. Oestreich has been concerned about justice for as long as she can remember but shifted her focus to the ERA in 1999. She is the founder and president of the National Equal Rights Amendment Alliance Inc., and while she focused on Florida’s ratification for a time, after so much pushback she has passed the effort over to other activists and now focuses more on the other unratified states. At 86 years old, Oestreich has a favorite refrain: She refuses to die before the ERA is in the Constitution, so people better get a move on.
“We can't even talk about it really without creating a big fuss. That's the way it is here and it's the way it is in most places,” Oestreich said. “So it's rather disturbing, but we're going to get it in the Constitution. I really, I refuse to die, I'm not going to go. I'm not going to go until it's in there, so fellas, shape up.”
Sandy Oestreich has been working on the ERA since 1999. Photo courtesy of Sandy Oestrich.