Storytime: The Equal Rights Amendment and Me

2022-06-28T17:38:29+00:00

Storytime: The Equal Rights Amendment and Me by Jim Mullen From 1973-75 I was an ombudsman in Jacksonville, Illinois, an exempt employee of a self-proclaimed “reform” Governor, Dan Walker. Though my “day job” was to advocate for citizens wrongly deprived of government services to which they were entitled, my “exempt” status meant the intrusion of state politics “after hours” was inescapable. The formal amendment of the US Constitution to include the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) required ratification in 2/3rds of the 50 states. In 1974-75, the supporters of the ERA needed only a handful of states to amend the Constitution. [...]