Equal Rights Amendment Supporters Look To Next Steps After It Fails In Arizona House Again

By Lauren Gilger
Published: Wednesday, April 17, 2019 - 12:57pm
Updated: Wednesday, April 17, 2019 - 1:33pm

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Equal Rights Amendment activists
Kim Mundis
Equal Rights Amendment activists march in Phoenix on March 12, 2019.

Three weeks ago, Arizona was at a tipping point.

The Equal Rights Amendment, a bill that says, “equality of rights ... shall not be denied or abridged ... on account of sex” was close to ratification in Arizona, making it the 38th state to do so and triggering Congress’s next move. That effort failed.

But nothing is ever dead in a legislative session and, on Tuesday, a second attempt was made when Tucson Rep. Pamela Powers Hannley demanded a floor vote.

But, for the second time, the effort was scuttled by House Republicans. They say it’s unnecessary, will open up definitions of sex and make abortion a constitutional right.

So what’s next for the ERA? For that, The Show was joined by Krista Niles from the Alice Paul Institute, a nonprofit focused on their namesake, a suffragist who first proposed the Equal Rights Amendment in 1923 and a revised version in 1943.

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