Equal Rights Amendment North Carolina Alliance
It's Time to Write Women Into the Constitution!
The ERA-NC Alliance is celebrating the bipartisan U.S. House vote today at 1:58 p.m. on House Joint Resolution 17 to lift the arbitrary time limit on the Equal Rights Amendment. The final vote was 222 to 204, with four Republicans and 218 Democrats voting yes. It is now up to the U.S. Senate to take up the companion bill, Senate Joint Resolution 1.
Bills have been filed in both the House and Senate on January 27th for the state to ratify the amendment!
HOUSE BILL 8: https://www.ncleg.gov/BillLookUp/2021/H8
SENATE BILL 15: https://www.ncleg.gov/BillLookUp/2021/S15
Please call or email your legislators right away! There’s a very short window for them to co-sponsor the bill: just 24 hours in the Senate and 48 in the House.
North Carolina made the national news in US News after yesterday’s press conference on the planned re-introduction of ratification bills for the Equal Rights Amendment in the NC General Assembly! Here are links to a few of the articles, we are getting noticed across the country:
https://www.usnews.com/news/
https://www.newsobserver.com/
https://thedailyrecord.com/
https://www.
https://www.stamfordadvocate.
https://apnews.com/
NC will try once again to ratify the (ERA) Equal Rights Amendment, WXII
Thanks to all the Senators and Representatives who have signed on as sponsors and co-sponsors. Let’s work to make N.C. the second Southern state to ratify the ERA!
Lori Bunton
Co-President, ERA-NC Alliance
The ERA-NC Alliance has joined forces with VoteEquality.us to highlight equality-minded candidates in 2020. Below you’ll find North Carolina voter resources and tips.
This year we’re urging voters to be especially mindful to make a voting plan – COVID-19 has raised the urgency of secure absentee voting and how to stay safe while voting in person. We’ve also conducted our 2020 Candidates Survey to find out which candidates will support North Carolina’s ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, so voters can know which candidates have an equality mindset.
Join us on Women’s Equality Day to raise our voices with music & calls-to-action for racial and gender justice and to put gender equality into the US Constitution! ERA-NC Alliance is a proud co-sponsor of this event.
FaceTheMusic4ERA is a virtual music concert featuring an amazing line-up of artists and speakers from across the country celebrating how far the ERA has come and laying out concrete next steps to get the job done!
It’s an opportunity for organizations & activists to come together, celebrate our accomplishments and learn how you can help make the ERA the 28th Amendment to the US Constitution.
Stay tuned for artists and top ERA speakers to be announced soon!
Find the FB event page here: https://www.facebook.com/
For national co-hosts & sponsors and event details visit: https://www.eramn.org/womens-
EVENT DETAILS:
WHEN: August 26th, 2020
TIME: 5pm PST – 7pm CST – 8pm EST
WHERE: FaceBook Live & Online
WHY: Celebrate, educate, agitate & activate for the 28th Amendment, the ERA!
ERA-NC Alliance, along with 52 other prominent women’s and social justice organizations, filed an amicus brief on July 1 in the lawsuit Virginia, Illinois and Nevada v. David S. Ferriero. The suit seeks to compel Ferriero, as the National Archivist, to publish the Equal Rights Amendment, making it the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
When Virginia ratified the ERA in January, it became the 38th and final state needed to add the amendment to the Constitution. Nevada ratified in 2017 and Illinois followed in 2018.
Ferriero refused to accept Virginia’s ratification and failed to publish the 28th Amendment. In contrast, he did accept Nevada and Illinois’ ratifications, though they, too, were outside the 1982 time limit.
“I debated the Equal Rights Amendment in 1971 in my senior high school English class,” said Lori Bunton, ERA-NC Alliance co-president. “And here I am, 49-plus years later, helping to lead an organization whose primary goal is to ratify the ERA in North Carolina. I am excited to sign on to the landmark amicus briefs.”
“I’m old enough to remember when Louisiana women were barred from serving on juries; when I could not get credit in my own name; when my mother was not even considered for a promotion, which, of course, went to a less experienced man,” said Roberta Madden, Alliance co-founder and board member. “Some of these outrages have been fixed, but too many have not. This amicus brief is a treasure trove of our history and makes a strong argument to provide women the constitutional protection we must have.”
A host of organizations, businesses and equality groups have filed briefs supporting the suit. Along with the Alliance, other nationally known women’s equality groups include the Alice Paul Institute, the Association of American University Women, the ERA Coalition, the League of Women Voters, TIME’S UP Foundation, the Feminist Majority Foundation, National Congress of Black Women, National Council of Jewish Women, National Organization for Women (NOW), National Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs, Women’s Media Center and Voto Latino.
“A single unelected official cannot be allowed to stand in the way of an amendment that has been fully ratified in accordance with the Constitution,” Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said. “Equal rights are not contingent upon a person’s gender or sex, and it is past time that women across the country have the constitutional equality to which they are entitled.”
Constitutional law scholars, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, 18 states, the governor of Kansas, the mayor of Washington, D.C., and the youth-centered equality group GenERAtion Ratify have joined briefs.
Amicus briefs have also been filed on behalf of more than 100 businesses and corporations, such as Apple, Advance Publications, Estee Lauder, Biogen, Goldman Sachs, Sports Business Journal, the National Football League and the United States Soccer Federation.
State and other Amicus Briefs:
Business and Corporate Entities
Chemerinsky, Feldman, Siegel, Suk
Equality Now and International Organizations
Generation Ratify
New York and Other States
Plantiff States Memorandum
Southern Legal Counsel
VA Ratify and Other State Organizations
International Women’s Day was March 8 and we hope everyone celebrated. VAratifyERA chose this date to celebrate their amazing victory as the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment! Women and men from across Virginia, and from states as far away as AZ and as close as NC, came to spend a sunny afternoon in Virginia’s capitol city, Richmond. The celebration told the world that equality for women has no time limit! ERA-NC Alliance was represented by 3 Board members: Lori Bunton, Co-President, Virginia Adamson, Parliamentarian and Judy Lotas, Board Member. President Jane Terwilliger of AAUW NC, one of our Lead organizations, also attended. The celebration began with speeches from dignitaries in Monroe Park and then everyone marched to the state capitol building led by a local drum corps on a 1.3 mile walk through downtown Richmond’s streets. The attendees climbed the steps of the Capitol for a symbolic photo op before heading back to Monroe Park.
NC is focused on becoming the 39th state to ratify as we continue to work with our legislators. Stay tuned for more information in the weeks ahead!
On January 27th, 2020, both the chambers of the Virginia state legislature voted “yes” on House Joint Resolution 1 (by a vote of 58-40) and its sister bill, SJ1 (by a vote of 27-12), formally ratifying the ERA.
And with that, we’ve reached the Constitution’s required three-quarters of the states ratifying the amendment for certification.
The ERA declares simply: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any state, on account of sex.”
A collection of statements on the ratification:
Jessica Neuwirth and Carol Jenkins, co-presidents of the national ERA Coalition told CNN Politics: “We are finally within reach of true equality for girls and women in the United States, thanks to the voters of Virginia and supporters across the country.”
Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority and former president of the National Organization for Women writes, “At last! At last!” She says, “I have had the privilege of being one of the leaders in the ERA fight for nearly 50 years. I always knew this day would come. It has never been a question of if, but only a question of when the ERA would be ratified. The fight for the ERA has been long because we’ve had a powerful entrenched opposition who has wanted to preserve the old order of women being forced to work twice as hard for half as much and paying more for less. But this time of taking advantage of women and their families is coming to an end.”
From Toni Van Pelt, president of the National Organization for women: “Today’s crossover vote makes Virginia officially the 38th state needed to ratify the ERA—passing the three-fourths of the states threshold the U.S. Constitution requires for final adoption of an amendment. However, obstacles to certification remain, including an artificial timeline imposed in the preamble to the ERA in 1972. While the timeline removal bill making its way through Congress is not necessary—legal analysts have asserted that Article V of the Constitution does not permit the imposition of deadlines on the ratification process—it would provide extra insurance as the ERA certification process goes forward. NOW calls on Congress to act on S.J.Res.6 and correct the Constitution’s most glaring omission. It is simply never too late for equality.”
Equal Means Equal film director, Kamala Lopez, wrote: “This moment has been a long time coming, but finally the United States can emerge from the shame and shadow of its historic discrimination against women and girls and join the 21st century by providing all Americans with equal rights and protections under our Constitution regardless of sex.”
Now the focus turns to the lawsuit filed by Equal Means Equal January 8th in U.S. District Court in Boston to prevent a government official from blocking efforts to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, arguing that the Congressionally imposed ERA ratification deadline is unconstitutional.
In addition to this lawsuit, the ERA-NC Alliance will keep the drumbeat going for the ERA. That means we will continue to work for state ratification – and here in North Carolina we’re determined to be the 39th state to ratify the ERA. With each additional state ratification, we will show that it is the will of the American people to see women equally protected under the United States Constitution.
On the federal level, we are working to lift that pesky deadline by Congressional action, and during the week of Feb. 10th the U.S. House will take up the bill (HJ79) to eliminate the time limit on the amendment. The U.S. Senate has a sister bill (SJ6), which is a bi-partisan bill with 41 co-sponsors.
We invite you to join the ERA-NC Alliance and to volunteer your time and yes – your dollars! – to help us make North Carolina the next state to ratify. We will win!!!
Joanna Wade, co-president of the ERA-NC Alliance, will be interviewed on “The State of Things,” a radio show on WUNC, Thursday, April 18, noon to 12:45 p.m. Frank Stasio is the host.