RATIFY ERA-NC

By Roberta Madden
This article was published in the Asheville (NC)  Citizen-Times on April 28, 2011.

A thoughtful editorial (AC-T, March 28) noting Women’s History Month made several important points:

•    Politically, women have advanced since 1921, when North Carolina elected the first woman to a state legislature anywhere in the South. Today, 22 percent of North Carolina state legislators are women—still far short of the female percentage of our population.
•    On average, women in the U.S. make 77 cents for every dollar men do—an increase of only 18 percent since 1963.
•    State budget crises threaten to result in layoffs that affect women disproportionately, in fields such as teaching and nonprofit organizations.
•    A great deal more remains to be done to make women truly equal.
Then on April Fool’s Day, Jonah Goldberg of the National Review Online (AC-T, April 1) asserted that the feminist movement in America “is largely played out” and “the work here is mostly done,” so that we now need to fight the battle for women’s equality in foreign lands. Despite Mr. Goldberg’s blithe assurances, as long as gross inequities exist, our work at home is far from done. Continue reading →

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Dear Senator Hagan:

We are writing on behalf of Equal Rights Amendment North Carolina Citizens Task Force (ERANC-CTF), a grassroots organization dedicated to ensuring that the ERA becomes part of the U.S. Constitution.

In particular, our members urge you to introduce in the Senate a resolution similar to HJR 47 by Rep. Tammy Baldwin, which will eliminate the deadline for ratification and make the ERA part of the Constitution when three more states ratify , thus completing the required  total of 38. Continue reading →

Only 3 more states are needed to make the Equal Rights Amendment part of the U.S. Constitution, and HJR 47, recently introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, will clarify that the 1982 deadline is eliminated. Let’s urge Congress to cosponsor HJR 47. To start over on ERA would require 38 states to ratify and take another lifetime.

So I created a petition to The United States House of Representatives and The United States Senate, which says:

“I support HJR 47 to eliminate the deadline for the Equal Rights Amendment to become part of the Constitution after three more states ratifiy it.”

Will you sign my petition? Click here to add your name:

Thanks!

Sincerely,
Roberta Madden

Women are not included in the U.S. Constitution except for the right to vote. For every legislative battle, we have to start all over again—and hard-won victories (such as Title IX) may be eroded when the makeup of Congress changes. One of the clearest examples of why we need bedrock constitutional protection is the persistence of gross pay inequities. Over the last several decades, women have averaged only around three-quarters of what men with the same education and the same jobs have earned.

The Equal Rights Amendment, first introduced in Congress in 1923, was approved by the House in 1971 and the Senate in 1972, with a seven-year deadline on ratification. The deadline was later extended to 10 years, but the ERA fell three states short of victory in 1982. Having failed to win 38 states by the deadline, we believed the amendment was dead and the process would have to begin again.

But in 1992, a major development occurred that resurrected the original ERA. That year, the Madison Amendment concerning congressional pay raises won ratification after 203 years, reported the ERA campaign website (www.eracampaign.net). 
The 27th Amendment’s incorporation into the Constitution after such a long delay signals the continuing viability of the ERA, especially as mention of a deadline is not included in the text of the amendment. 
ERA supporters have now adopted the “three-state strategy,” an attempt to have three more states ratify the amendment and challenge the deadline.

Let’s establish a network of individuals throughout the state to lobby our House members and senators regularly about ratifying the ERA and to recruit others to do so. If you are interested, please contact Roberta Madden.