“We shall not be safe until the principle of equal rights is written into the framework of our government.”              Alice Paul     1923

In the 100 years since women got the right to vote in the 19th Amendment, and the 150 years since ‘the equal protection of the laws’ was guaranteed in the 14th Amendment, women have had their legal status in the United States challenged by the fact that the original Constitution did not take them into account. That omission in the basic plan of government bedevils women to this day and allows for legislative mischief, such as states creating impediments to their reproductive rights, and employer slights, such as unequal pay and the denial of specific benefits unique to their gender, such as leave and help for their children. The concept of One Nation requires that all be equal before the law. The failure of the national government to protect the interests of woman throughout the land is much like that of the lack of federal oversight in national elections; they are problems in need of legislative solutions.

I advocate executive action to issue the Preliminary Equal Rights Proclamation, after the manner of Lincoln’s 1863 Preliminary  Emancipation Proclamation, with the injunction for the 117th Congress to expedite as quickly as possible the ratification of ERA as the 28th Amendment to the Constitution. Alice Paul’s advice is as right today as it was 100 years ago.