From Elise Bouc, spearhead of the opposition to passage of the Equal Rights Amendment in Illinois:

Disappointment with the ERA

After a long hard battle, the ERA passed in the Illinois House tonight by a vote of 72 – 45 (they needed 71 votes to pass due to a 3/5 majority requirement for Constitutional amendments).

10 Republicans voted for it (Andersson, Brady, Durkin, David Harris, Hays, Olsen, Pritchard, Wehrli, Welter and Winger) and 5 Democrats voted against it (Bristow, Costello, Phelps Finnie, Flowers, and Mayfield).

I’ve attached a copy of the full House vote.

We are grateful for all those legislators who voted against the ERA.

Their votes show them for the principled legislators that they are.

Please help them in their elections so that they can continue to represent us well in Springfield.

We need to help people in their district understand that a vote against the ERA was a vote in favor of women and the unborn child.

We have been successful for a very long time in preventing the ERA from being ratified in Illinois (over 25 years – from 1972 – 1982 and 2003- 2018).

Thank you for all you have done through the years to protect women, the unborn child, our families, our religious freedoms, and our society.

Our fight is not over.

We will continue to help other unratified states fight, and we will educate our elected officials in Congress so that they will be prepared if and when the supporters of the ERA ask them to retroactively extend the time deadline of the ERA.

These are vitally important issues that we must continue to protect.

We lost some battles in the 1970s, but we succeeded in the end in stopping the ERA.

And we can repeat that history.

We may have lost this battle, but the war is not over.

Thank you for all that you do!

Right is still right, and our values are still worth fighting for.