We are truly a grassroots organization...
The NYS Equal Rights Amendment Voting 2024 | The New York State Equal Rights Amendment | Green Amendment to State's Constitution | Education Lesson Plans for High School Seniors | Local Action for Promoting Democracy
The New York Equal Rights Amendment Voting 2024
On Nov. 5, 2024, we will go to the polls to elect a president, congressional representatives and local officials. Also on the ballot will be a proposed amendment to the New York State Constitution, to ensure equal protection under the law for all New Yorkers.
New York Constitution has a limited equal protection clause – it applies only to those experiencing discrimination based on “race, color, creed or religion.” The NY ERA would expand those protections to include, for example, sex, gender, age, disability, ethnicity – in other words, all New Yorkers.
The NYS League of Women Voters is working in partnership with the New Yorkers for Equal Rights Coalition to educate voters and to advocate for passage of the amendment. A simple explanation of the amendment’s purpose and what it entails is in this flyer from the coalition:
“Right now, New York’s State Constitution does not protect all New Yorkers – for example, pregnant New Yorkers, women, LGBTQIA+ people, those with disabilities, older adults, and people from different countries and cultures.
“We need a constitutional amendment so our rights and freedoms are protected – no matter who is in office.
“The NY ERA would:
- “Explicitly prohibit discrimination by the government based on a person’s ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, and sex – including their sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression – in addition to pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes.
- “Add to existing protections based on race and religion.
- “Ensure New York’s Constitution includes the strongest legal protections for all New Yorkers.”
But, do we need an amendment? Don’t New York’s laws protect people’s rights and freedoms? Yes. But, as we have learned in recent years, rights that we have relied on for decades can be diluted or even eliminated by a simple majority of a legislature or a court.
On the other hand, it is very difficult to amend New York’s Constitution. It is not affected by political whims the way laws, acts or regulations might be. This amendment is as close as we will ever get to a guarantee that “our rights and freedoms are protected – no matter who is in office.”
Joan Fucillo, NYS ERA Task Force Representative
The New York State Equal Rights Amendment
As of this writing, the proposed Equal Rights Amendment (NY ERA) to the NY State Constitution is off November’s ballot, after a state supreme court ruled that a procedural misstep in the legislative process invalidated the ballot measure. NY Attorney General Letitia James has appealed the ruling. New Yorkers for Equal Rights, the statewide coalition advocating for the amendment’s passage, is confident that the ruling will be overturned. The League of Women Voters of New York is a member of that coalition.
Article 1 of the New York State Constitution is our state’s Bill of Rights. Section 11, the equal protection clause added in 1938, ensures that “no person shall, because of race, color, creed or religion be subjected to any discrimination in his civil rights.”
In 2001, Section 11 was amended to include women: “no person shall, because of race, color, creed or religion be subjected to any discrimination in his or her civil rights.” A limited, but important step.
The NY ERA would expand Section 11’s protected categories of “race, color, creed or religion” to include “ethnicity, national origin, age, disability” and “sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, and reproductive healthcare and autonomy.” Whew – that sounds like a laundry list. Do we really need all that? Yes. We do.
In Roe v. Wade (1973), the US Supreme Court found “a fundamental right of privacy under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment” of the US Constitution, which, it said, covered women seeking to terminate their pregnancies. This followed a trend in the Court’s thinking that found a right of privacy for married couples seeking contraceptives (Griswold, 1965), for unmarried couples seeking contraceptives (Eisenstadt, 1972), and, later, for homosexual activity (Lawrence, 2003).
In 2022, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org., the US Supreme Court overturned 50 years of Roe, finding that the right of privacy does not provide a right to abortion. It is unclear whether this thinking can or will be used to review other rights that fall under the rubric of personal privacy, but at least one Justice opined that the Dobbs reasoning may be applied in a case regarding same-sex marriage.
At present, women’s autonomy in their reproductive healthcare belongs to the states, which can differ wildly. Some guarantee abortion rights for women; some impose bans at varying intervals – six, 10, 15 weeks; some carve out vague exceptions to their bans; and some, by extension, seek to punish those who aid or abet women trying to get the care they need.
The late Justice Antonin Scalia joined the US Supreme Court in 1986. He did not get to weigh in on Roe, but he wrote a stinging dissent in Lawrence and was the lone ‘no’ vote on allowing women to attend a public military school in Virginia.
When asked in a 2010 interview whether the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment applied to sex discrimination, Justice Scalia said that it did not. He added that “the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't. Nobody ever thought that that’s what it meant.”
In other words, if the Constitution does not explicitly prohibit sex discrimination, then you have no protection. Justice Scalia, often an outlier during his tenure, has found a home in today’s Supreme Court.
Which brings us back to the NY Equal Rights Amendment.
We have seen the fragility of the rights and freedoms we have relied on as US citizens. Roe fell because “sex” is not in the US Constitution. Our state has some of the strongest anti-discrimination laws in the country, but laws can easily be changed by a majority vote in the state legislature or thwarted by a governor’s veto.
If we want to ensure that we, and all our fellow New Yorkers, at every stage of life, are protected from discrimination, then we all need to be in the state constitution.
Joan Fucillo, Representative to the NY ERA Taskforce
Legislators, Advocates Call for Green Amendment in State's Constitution
Additionally, 90 advocate groups have called on the state Legislature to support the bill. A letter in support released today states that the amendment, "will drive better government decision-making at all levels of government and will prevent situations or conditions in which water becomes too polluted, air too dirty, land too contaminated, and natural landscapes too decimated to support healthy lives, including a healthy economy."
Forty-three states have some form of expression of environmental values in their Constitutions; but only Montana and Pennsylvania have recognized protecting environmental rights as an inalienable right, putting environmental rights on par with other political and civil liberties. In a 2016 report, the New York State Bar Association noted that "several other states, such as Pennsylvania, and 174 nations, have adopted and implemented constitutional `environmental rights,'" adding that Article 14 of the New York State Constitution, the Forever Wild clause, does not include such protections.
Excerpt from Environmental Advocates of New York
Education Lesson Plans for High School Seniors
Local Action For Promoting Democracy
Positions result from a process of study. Any given study, whether it be National, State, or Local, is thorough in its pursuit of facts and details. As the study progresses, a continuing discussion of pros and cons of each situation occurs. Prior to the results of the study being presented to the general membership, study committee members fashion consensus questions that are then addressed by the membership.
Additional discussion, pro and con, takes place as members (not part of the study committee) learn the scope of the study. After the members reach consensus, the board forms positions based on that consensus.
It is the consensus statement -- the statement resulting from the consensus questions -- that becomes a position. Firm action or advocacy can then be taken on the particular issue addressed by the position. Without a position, action/advocacy cannot be taken.
