EXTRA: Lingering since my high school days, ERA gets approval. Or is it just Illinois asserting its “blue” nature?

Politics and government from back in the days when I was a high schooler – Ronald Reagan and Harold Washington became, respectively, president and Chicago mayor. Adlai Stevenson III gave up his U.S. Senate seat and came, oh so close, to becoming Illinois governor.

Illinois history? Or state remaining solidly blue?

And people seriously quarreled over the Equal Rights Amendment, which never became a reality in large part because Illinois failed to act to ratify it.

NOW, WE ADVANCE three-and-a-half decades to the present day, where there are those who are going about saying Illinois finally got off its collective behind and voted to ratify the constitutional amendment that says a person’s right to equal treatment should not be limited by their gender.

WASHINGTON: A mayoral dream for many

For the Illinois House of Representatives on Wednesday voted to approve the amendment – making Illinois the 37^th state to do so. Get 38 states to go along, and you have a change to the U.S. Constitution!

Yet I’m not convinced that Illinois’ action means much of anything – except showing that Illinois is NOT among the states where conservative ideologues prevail on social issues.

I actually think there’s a better chance that the head cheerleader of my high school days will suddenly pop back into my life and throw herself at me, than that Illinois’ action actually means the Equal Rights Amendment is now a part of law. And yes, I realize that's a very un-ERA type of thought to have.

IT ALL COMES back to the notion that there is a time limit on considering constitutional amendments, and the issue of the ERA far exceeded that limit.

REAGAN: The far-right fantasy

Which was March 22 1979 – although Congress voted to extend it to June 30, 1982. It still failed to get the 38 states for ratification – with Illinois’ refusal to consider the measure considered by some the move that killed the ERA.

I know of some political people who, to this day, still want to blame then-Illinois House Speaker George Ryan for the ERA’s failure and think that act is more heinous than his behavior later as secretary of state and governor that got him a six-year prison term.

So I’m not sure of the significance of the 72-45 vote the Illinois House took Wednesday, with some people who might have been sympathetic to the ERA’s goals voting “no” because they considered it a pointless action.

STEVENSON: Came so close to being gov.

I KNOW THAT from my standpoint, the General Assembly had better come up with a state budget for the upcoming fiscal year – an act it has not been able to do in any of the past three years.

If the Illinois House couldn’t sign off on a budget (which does impact state government’s daily activity) before adjourning Thursday night for the summer months but managed to find time to deal with the abstraction that the ERA has become, then there are going to be those who question political priorities.

And yes, I realize that government officials are capable (or at least they’re supposed to be) of addressing multiple issues.

But anybody who’s acting as though the Illinois House made history on Wednesday, they’re living in the past. Wednesday’s vote would have been of great historic significance for Illinois had it been done back when I was a high school junior – and not at a time when I have a nephew finishing up his high school days.

SCHLAFLY: ERA opponent rolling over in grave?

PARTICULARLY SINCE THE Equal Rights Amendment is such a simple, declarative sentence that says all people ought to be treated equal – one whose approval should not have been any kind of controversy.

All that talk by critics about how it means the genders will have to share public bathrooms is just a bunch of bunk. Which remains all these years later among the most absurd argument I’ve ever heard made against an issue.

People opposing the Equal Rights Amendment back then and still today? It says more about your hang-ups in life than anything wrong with the concept itself.

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How much do celebrity stances, endorsements influence political issues?

I always wonder how much the so-called famous amongst us think we really care about what they think of our “local” issues.

Would the youthful Mick have cared about ERA?

Are they so self-absorbed that they believe we’re going to be swayed by their official pronouncements? Or are there those of us who really will consider taking a stance just because of what an entertainer thinks?

TAKE MICK JAGGER, the aging rocker whose band ripped its name off an old Muddy Waters tune and whose early records included a riff on Chuck Berry with “Around and Around.”

Mick, that aging rocker who still has the big ol’ lips that became the Rolling Stones’ logo, of sorts, wrote a brief letter that his daughter, Elizabeth, distributed through Instagram.

His issue of concern is the Equal Rights Amendment, where there are some political people of Illinois behaving in ways as though the issue is a still-pending one, rather than one whose time expired some 36 years ago.

Mick isn't the first Jagger to try to sway Ill.

For the record, the man whose band gave us the drug-tinged song “Mother’s Little Helper” is for the ERA. In his brief letter, Mick wrote that three of his daughters, including Elizabeth, are U.S. citizens.

“THEY SHOULD ALL deserve equal rights under the Constitution of the United States,” Jagger wrote.

Which struck me as an interesting line of logic in that many of the conservative ideologues who often rant against the ERA acknowledge that same basic concept.

They argue that it is so obvious that women already have equal protection under U.S. law that they don’t want to have to add a constitutional amendment. They go so far as to say it is insulting to women to have to specify they’re equal.

 

Bianca fought for Garcia, who's still alive in '18

 Of course, those ideologues often behave in ways that show their actions are not the same as their thoughts, which is why others believe the ERA – with its simple, declarative statement that “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of sex.”

JAGGER’S LETTER HAS been brought to the attention of the Illinois House of Representatives, whose members are contemplating the ERA – the same legislative body who back in 1982 failed to approve the measure, and that failure is oft regarded as the death blow for the amendment’s ability to be ratified by three-quarters of the nation’s legislators.

Will Mick Jagger really be able to sway the way our political people think?

Or will his involvement (as minor as it truly is) become the matter that offends ERA critics to the point where their opposition is stepped up to a new intensity.

Will the man who gave us “Paint it Black” or “Sympathy for the Devil” have any impact on the Illinois ERA battle, where state Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, said he hopes to have a vote take place before month’s end – which also would be the end of the ’18 spring legislative session?

IT AMUSES ME in part because I remember a moment from a couple of decades ago when one of Jagger’s ex-wives, Bianca, had her own little activist moment in Illinois.

How many Stones fans also wore these pins?

She actually made the journey to the Statehouse in Springfield to try to sway state officials about capital punishment. Specifically, as to the pending execution of Guinevere Garcia – a woman who killed her husband after being released from prison for another crime she was convicted of.

That 1996 execution ultimately was commuted by then-Gov. Jim Edgar, although I remember some people were bothered by the presence of Amnesty International and Bianca Jagger. As though that would have been reason enough to let Garcia die.

Will Mick’s involvement get the anti-ERA types equally riled up? Or are there others star-gazed enough to wish that the soon-to-be 75 Jagger, himself, could make the sojourn to Springfield.

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Some political issues like ERA just won’t die, even after they’re long dead

When it comes to conservative political people in Illinois, they long have thought of their ability to kill off the Equal Rights Amendment as one of their major accomplishments.

A past image for an antique amendment

And it seems they’re not about to give up that “victory,” no matter how ridiculous they make themselves look in the process.

FOR THOSE OF you so young that you don’t have a clue about anything that came before your time, the Equal Rights Amendment was an effort that tried to put in the Constitution to protect women from discrimination.

It failed back in 1982 when enough state Legislatures failed to ratify the amendment. The Illinois Legislature was among those that failed to act, and some say it was Illinois’ failure to approve that inspired other holdouts to stubbornly act out as well.

But there are some legal scholars who have argued that the 1982 deadline for ratification is not as rock solid as political people always presumed it was. Which is what caused the Illinois Senate this week to take a vote this week.

The Democratic majority that now controls the Illinois Senate voted to approve, and the Illinois House of Representatives likely will take a vote in coming weeks. Even though it is likely the 1982 deadline remains in place, and the action becomes one of pure symbolism.

MEANING IT’S NOT likely to make a difference. We’re not likely to get the Equal Rights Amendment as a part of the Constitution any time in the near future.

Will we get future protest marches like this?

But that’s not stopping the ideologue-inclined from getting all bent out of shape.

Officials with the political action committees of the Federation for Right to Life, Illinois Citizens for Life, Lake County Life, Illinois – Stop ERA, Illinois Family Action and the Concerned Christian Americans signed off on a letter informing legislators that they’ll lose out on the endorsements and possible money that the activist groups might otherwise provide to them as they seek re-election come Nov. 6.

They’re going to make the demise of the Equal Rights Amendment – which is what the late Phyllis Schlafly used to gain her national reputation – their big issue.

Schlafly 'made her bones' on Illinois ERA failure

I KNOW SOME people are shocked to think that anybody in these days would vote against the Equal Rights Amendment. Although considering that ERA opposition always had a tinge of nonsense attached to it, nothing should be shocking.

How nonsensical?

I remember back when the issue was alive for real, opponents would toss out the argument that the Equal Rights Amendment would mean separate restrooms would no longer be acceptable for men and women and that women could face conscription into the military.

You can’t really use those arguments anymore because we have unisex bathrooms and women are a part of the modern military.

NOW, THE ARGUMENT being used is that equal rights for all would undermine local laws that restrict abortion access. Which means that ERA opponents must be the knuckleheaded-types who want to talk of criminal punishment for women when the day comes they can overturn the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that upheld abortion rights for women.

What is humorous about this is that the actual Equal Rights Amendment merely says, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied, or abridged, by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” That’s all!

The past's offensive image has largely come true

Where anyone ever read anything about unisex bathrooms into that is beyond me. Just as I don’t see anything in there about abortion – unless you really think it proper to harass pregnant women.

But like I wrote, the death of the ERA is a political victory the “right” can claim. And they’re not going to let any smart-alecked dames even think about taking it away – that’s the pathetic way some of us still think in this Age of Trump.

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