Opinion | Minnesota needs an Equal Rights Amendment now more than ever

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As the new legislative session unfolds, one bill is getting a hearing right out of the chute: the Minnesota Equal Rights Amendment ballot initiative. It will be heard in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Monday, Feb. 23. And a good thing, too.

Last biennium we came within a hairbreadth of passing an inclusive ERA, only falling short of reconciling the House and Senate versions on the final day. This, despite having a million dollars spent against us by an ever-shrinking but well-fueled opposition.

Increasingly, Minnesotans are becoming acutely aware of devastating consequences when human rights under law are eroded. We’ve experienced political assassinations and attempted assassinations aimed at a list that overwhelmingly targeted women; the slaughter of the innocents at Annunciation School, and mass deportations of mainly legal immigrants, not to mention the horrific murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. In Good’s killing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement assailant’s misogynist epithet underscored the forceful ICE tactics being applied, particularly to marginalized women.

Passage of the state ERA initiative (SF 473) is crucial now more than ever. Though aware of the current political atmosphere, we take a page from Susan B. Anthony’s book: “Failure Is Impossible.”

Embedding protections into our state Constitution will ensure remedies in our courts that cannot be easily undermined. It will also create a framework for progress — social, moral and legal. Laws can be easily changed or overturned by future legislatures or courts. A state constitutional amendment, however, provides a firm, lasting leg to stand on that ensures our rights are protected, despite future political shifts.

We lost two treasured ERA champions in the past 14 months, Melissa Hortman and Kari Dziedzic. Speaker Emerita Hortman passed ERA bills three times — in three separate biennia — through the Minnesota House. In 2023, Sen. Kari Dziedzic shepherded both Sen. Mary Kunesh’s state ERA initiative and Sen. Sandra Pappas’ ERA Resolution to Congress through the Minnesota Senate — with bipartisan support. May their legacies continue.

There’s been constant ERA progress in recent years. Nationally, the number of states ratifying the federal ERA grew by three to reach the threshold specified in the U.S. Constitution to make it the 28th Amendment. Then-President Joe Biden made a proclamation to that effect in January 2025. Meanwhile, state ERAs have steadily grown in number — and become more inclusive in language — from just 21 states in 2014 to 29 today that have ERAs in their state constitutions. Now is the time for Minnesota to join those other states.

If passed, the question will be put on this November’s general election ballot, reading:

“Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to say that all persons shall be guaranteed equal rights under the laws of this state, and shall not be discriminated against on account of race, color, national origin, ancestry, disability, or sex, including pregnancy, gender, and sexual orientation?”

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who died this week, had said: “America is not like a blanket: one piece of unbroken cloth, the same color, the same texture, the same size. America is more like a quilt: many patches, many pieces, many colors, many sizes, all woven and held together by a common thread. The white, the Hispanic, the Black, the Arab, the Jew, the woman, the Native American, the small farmer, the businessperson, the environmentalist, the peace activist, the young, the old, the lesbian, the gay and the disabled make up the American quilt.”

Everyone deserves the same right to the same rights.

Come to the hearing at the State Capitol on Monday (tinyurl.com/MNSenateHearingSched). Join us at our huge ERA rally in the Capitol Rotunda on Thursday, March 12.