Countdown on the ERA

As the deadline nears, supporters mount last-gasp drives

With the June 30 cutoff for passage just three weeks away, the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution is still three states shy of the 38 needed for ratification. But supporters are not yet willing to call it quits. Heartened by a recent Harris poll showing that public support for passage has increased since January from 50% to 63% and a huge outpouring of money (more than $ 1 million a month in contributions to the National Organization for Women since December), ERA activists have intensified their last-ditch push for ratification. Says NOW President Eleanor Smeal: "Women want to be equal and they refuse to believe that their country would vote that they are not."

But ERA proponents were dealt a double blow in the Carolinas last week. In South Carolina the state legislature concluded its regular session without bringing the amendment to a vote. And in North Carolina, the state senate voted 27 to 23 to table the ERA, virtually eliminating any chance for passage there. The fight is now concentrated in Oklahoma, Florida and Illinois. In Oklahoma, where a ratification resolution was voted down in January, ERA supporters have collected 25,000 signatures petitioning Governor George Nigh to convene a special legislative session to reconsider passage. Nigh has rejected a special session for the moment, but aides say he would call one if one or two more states ratify the amendment.

In Florida, Governor Robert Graham, an ERA supporter, will call a special session this month to take up the ERA. Hopes for belated ratification rose when the Florida supreme court ruled that all 40 state senators must face re-election this year because their districts were altered by a new reapportionment plan; normally only 20 are up for re-election in a given year. The senate has been the main obstacle to the ERA'S passage, rejecting it four times since 1972. Says Gloria Sackman-Reed, Florida NOW coordinator: "[Legislators are] in the position now of voting against the amendment and then facing the voters three months later. It will be an issue in their campaigns." Despite a heavy pro-ERA campaign, the odds remain heavily against passage. Says State Senator Harry Johnston, an ERA supporter: "I don't see anything yet that will change any votes around."

Most immediate attention, however, is focused on Illinois, where ERA activists are pressuring legislators to make a rules change that would require only a simple majority rather than a three-fifths plurality to approve a constitutional amendment. Fasting and civil disobedience have become lobbying tactics. Last week 20 ardent ERA supporters chained themselves to the brass railing outside the senate chambers in Springfield, Ill. Said Mary Whitmore of Bellevue, Wash.: "These chains dramatize the economic slavery we are in."

Seven other women, on a hunger strike since May 18, sit in the capitol rotunda for three hours each day. One of the fasters, Sonia Johnson, 46, who was excommunicated from the Mormon church for her support of the ERA, has been hospitalized twice for muscle spasms and an adverse drug reaction, and is in a wheelchair; her weight has dropped from 122 Ibs. to 104 Ibs.

ERA foes have munched candy bars in the fasters' presence, and bumper stickers have appeared with the message THEY NEED TO LOSE WEIGHT ANYWAY. The hunger strike may also have backfired politically. State Senator Forest Etheredge, who is pro-ERA and favors the rules change, says the tactic is political extortion, and he promises to withhold his support until the fast ends. As the reactions to the hunger strike made clear, passions on both sides of the ERA were still running high, even as it neared almost certain defeat.

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