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Is The ERA Back In Play? The Illinois Senate May Have A Say

Susan Stephens
/
WNIJ

Illinois is again at the center of a national movement involving the Equal Rights Amendment, 35 years after the state failed to ratify it.

The ERA is back on the table in Springfield and was even approved by an Illinois Senate committee last week. Evolving legal theories have given the failed constitutional amendment new life.

Congress passed the ERA in 1972 and set a 10-year deadline for 38 states to ratify it. Illinois was the only northern industrial state not to approve it. Now supporters say legal precedents show the amendment is still in play and that Congress could change the deadline. Nevada ratified it in March, so the ERA is now two states short.

The ERA would prohibit the denial of civil rates based on sex and was first proposed in 1923, shortly after women won the right to vote.

A floor vote hasn’t been scheduled yet for Illinois.