Illinois Just Ratified the Equal Rights Amendment

The move comes nearly 50 years after Congress first passed the measure.

A woman cheers as feminist Gloria Steinem takes the stage at the Women's March on Washington on January 21, 2017, in Washington, D.C. Alex Edelman via ZUMA Wire

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

On Wednesday night, the Illinois House of Representatives narrowly voted to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, the proposal to include gender equality in the United States Constitution. The amendment was passed by the state Senate in April, 36 years after the last deadline to ratify passed and 46 years after it was passed by Congress. Illinois is now the 37th state to ratify, meaning only one more state needs to ratify the amendment before it heads back to the federal government for approval. Nevada ratified the ERA last year. 

In Springfield, the bill passed by a vote of 72-45—just one more vote than needed. “I am appalled and embarrassed that the state of Illinois has not done this earlier,” state Democratic Rep. Stephanie Kifowit told the Chicago Tribune. “I am proud to be on this side of history and I am proud to support not only all the women that this will help, that this will send a message to, but I am also here to be a role model for my daughter.”

However, even if the ERA passes in the states, its legal status is murky. Detractors say that ratifications that happened after the 1982 deadline imposed by Washington could be considered moot. Supporters reject this argument, pointing to an amendment that was ratified and added to the Constitution more than 200 years after it was introduced. 

In March, I spoke with Illinois activists about their campaign for ratification. As I wrote then, Illinois has a complicated history with the proposed amendment, which has seen a resurgence in popularity thanks in part to the #MeToo movement: 

As state after state ratified following passage in 1972, supporters in Illinois, a bastion of progressivism in the Midwest, rallied in Springfield around what they saw as imminent victory in the state. But the Phyllis Schlafly-led opposition also honed in on the state, and year after year, as the issue was brought before the state legislature, Schlafly prevailed. Since 1982, proposals to ratify the ERA have been re-introduced only sporadically in the state, most recently in 2014, when it came close after passing in the Senate, but ultimately failed in the House because of a lack of energy on the issue. 

The bill’s longtime supporters, state Sen. Heather Steans and Rep. Lou Lang, note that this year is already proving to be different. For one, there are several Republicans not up for reelection who Lang anticipates are likely to give their support. And, says Steans, the Senate’s brand new women’s caucus—formed in the wake of the #MeToo reckoning, will discuss the ERA before the vote. 

“The stars are aligned,” Lang told Mother Jones. “Given the climate of our country today, I think it is a very important opportunity.” 

ERA activists had their eye on Arizona as a likely contender for ratification, but state Republicans blocked a vote on the bill in April, leaving the ERA’s next move unclear.

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate