A unique look at why the Equal Rights Amendment failed

Source citation:

• Strickland, J. M. (2025). Who stopped the Equal Rights Amendment? State Politics & Policy Quarterly, 25(4), 439–463.

Strickland investigated what may have contributed to the failure of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to pass in enough states to be ratified in the US Constitution. Unlike any previous research, he conducted a comprehensive look at the impact of lobbying on the ERA, attempting to detect influence over roll call votes by detecting correlations. He used lobbyist registration records from 374 legislative sessions (1969-1982) and he compiled a dataset of 6,952 roll call votes cast by state legislators between 1973 and 1982. Using data from State Legislative Election Returns (1967-2010), which he accessed from the ICPSR Member Archive, Strickland also looked at the possible influence of legislators’ party, gender, and race/ethnicity on their votes. Finally, he looked at the impact of state-level public opinion, using data from Gallup polls. Strickland found evidence that lobbying had some correlation with Republican votes, but it was not the primary cause of the amendment’s failure. Instead, shifting public opinion over time and the personal demographics of legislators seemed to play the most significant roles. He noted, ” . . . the amendment might have been ratified had there been more Democrats, women, and non-white people serving in the state legislatures.” Check here for more publications that use data from State Legislative Election Returns (1967-2010).

Posted April 23, 2026