ERA Coalition Statement on the lawsuit filed by VA, IL and NV
(January 30, 2020) Washington, DC –
Washington, DC –The ERA Coalition and Fund for Women’s Equality welcomes the legal action of Attorney General Mark Herring of Virginia, Attorney General Kwame Raoul of Illinois and Attorney General Aaron Ford of Nevada to support constitutional equality for women. The legislators and advocates in these three states have brought us to this historic moment in time. In Nevada, State Senator Pat Spearman, in Illinois, current Lt Governor Julianna Stratton and former Representative Steven Andersson, in Virginia legislators like Senator Jennifer McClellan and Delegate Jennifer Carroll Foy—these names will be remembered with others as leaders who refused to take no for an answer, and brought us to this day when three fourths of the states have ratified the Equal Rights Amendment as required by the Constitution, a glorious day for women across America.
It is time for equality. We have waited too long already for equal rights, and it is shameful that there are those who would have us wait a moment longer. We have been on the ERA journey for almost a century. Alice Paul’s idea to prohibit discrimination based on sex was a good idea in 1923 when it was first introduced in Congress. It was a good idea when it was passed by Congress in 1972. And it was still a good idea when it was ratified by Nevada in 2017, Illinois in 2018 and Virginia, the 38th state, on Monday January 27, 2020. The ERA is as American as apple pie, and ERA Coalition polling indicates says that 94 percent of Americans – and 99% of millennials – agree that the Constitution should be amended to include equal rights for women.
Over the years we have made some progress, and we have built a strong women’s movement, as evidenced most recently by the #MeToo outcry, a wave of protest that highlights the fact that women are still second-class citizens in this country. It is time to put these days behind us, 100 years – a full century – after women got the right to vote. We need the ERA because 80 per cent of our poor are women, trying to house and feed children; women are still woefully behind in pay and promotion, and inequality is a life or death issue on a daily basis as women in the home and workplace continue to fear sexual and physical assault with no recourse to federal courts because without the ERA there is no basis for such jurisdiction.
Women were intentionally omitted from the Constitution when it was written, despite the fervent plea of Abigail Adams for our inclusion. Generation after generation of grandmothers, mothers, daughters, granddaughters have dreamed of fixing this shameful omission. That is what the ERA does for us, and we welcome this 28th Amendment to the Constitution. We are determined to see it through and we will never give up on an equal future.
