In April 2023, the Senate attempted to revive the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) which prohibits discrimination based on sex. Supporters have pushed for more than five decades to amend our Constitution to read ‘Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.’ Sixty votes were needed to move forward with the resolution to remove the 1982 deadline for state ratification. It was not achieved with the 51-47 vote. Both Kansas Senators Jerry Moran and Roger Marshall voted against the amendment. In 2020 and 2021 the House voted to remove the expired deadline to ratify the amendment after Virginia became the 38th state needed for the threshold. However, the Justice Department under former President Donald Trump’s administration claimed it would not be possible because the deadline expired.
This amendment has a long history. The ERA was first drafted in 1923 by suffragist Alice Paul. She believed the ERA to be the next step in guaranteeing equal justice to all citizens and worked for its passage until her death in 1977. The ERA was introduced in both the House and Senate in 1923 by Congressman Daniel R. Anthony (R-KS), nephew to suffragist Susan B. Anthony, and Sen. Charles Curtis (R-KS). From 1923 to 1970, some form of the ERA was introduced in every session of Congress. On March 22, 1972, Congress ratified the ERA. Shortly afterward Kansas ratified the amendment on March 28th under incumbent Governor Robert Docking (D).
Many people have thought that the ERA had already been adopted. Some think that women are already protected from discrimination under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, and other laws like the Equal Pay Act (1963), or the Pregnancy Discrimination Act (1978). Still, others like me think that equality for women belongs in the Constitution to prevent rollbacks of women’s rights. That way many of our current legal protections against sex discrimination cannot be removed by the margin of a single vote.
Janice Walker
President LWV of Great Bend