Activists claim that the proposed ERA has accumulated enough support to become part of the United States Constitution, even though the vast majority of today’s voters were either too young to vote or not even born when the first state approved the measure in 1972.
It’s not fair.
Under our Constitution, We The People are supposed to have a say. Amendments can only be added to the Constitution if relatively contemporaneous super-majorities agree. But most of today’s voters and their elected representatives haven’t agreed. Have you?
Your voice matters. Representative democracy matters.
Watch and share this new video featuring IWF staff.
Do you remember the Equal Rights Amendment from the 1970s? Supporters said it would guarantee equality of the sexes.
But opponents worried that amending the Constitution was too blunt an instrument and that the ERA would have unforeseen negative consequences for women.
An amendment to our Constitution requires ratification by ¾ (or 38) of the states.
Congress sent the ERA to the states for consideration in 1972, and the country embarked on a long national discussion about whether to add the ERA to the Constitution.
Even after years of public debate, and debate within the state legislatures, the country was just not comfortable permanently amending the Constitution to require that men and women always be treated the same.
The deadline for ratification passed, and the ERA expired.
Today, in 2020, women and men are legally equal in the United States.
Men and women are not the same, but we are equal under the U.S. Constitution and state and federal law.
Nevertheless, some activists argue that the ERA must be added to the Constitution today. In fact, they claim that the proposal was finally and officially ratified in 2020 when the Virginia legislature approved the measure — multiple decades after the amendment expired.
ERA supporters want to force the amendment on voters like me — voters who weren’t even born when most states considered the measure.
And they want to force it on voters like me who were too young to vote in the 1970s.
Some people in my generation support the ERA.
Others oppose it.
But most people aren’t aware of the ERA’s potential consequences, precisely because we haven’t had a full discussion about the measure within our lifetimes.
The vast majority of today’s voters weren’t part of the great national ERA debate of the 1970s.
Most of our representatives haven’t had a chance to weigh in on the matter.
Under our Constitution, We The People are supposed to have a say. And we can only amend our governing charter if large super-majorities agree.
Nobody asked me or my elected representatives if we should permanently amend the Constitution to require that men and women be treated the same in all circumstances. . . Did they ask you?
They didn’t ask me.
They didn’t ask me.
They didn’t ask me.
They didn’t ask me.
They didn’t ask me.
They definitely didn’t ask me.
Did they ask YOU?
It’s time to have the debate. The Constitution shouldn’t be amended without YOUR consent. The ERA must start over. . . because representative democracy matters.
OUR voices matter.