John — we need your help today.

We are at a critical time in the fight for the Equal Rights Amendment. The House, in March, passed a resolution removing the time limit from the Equal Rights Amendment’s preamble.

But the ERA resolution just sits in the Senate — blocked by the threat of a filibuster.

We are now focusing on those Senators who will make or break an end to the filibuster. One of those key Senators, as I am sure you know, is Senator Joe Manchin in West Virginia.

Will you join me right now in calling upon Sen. Manchin to end the filibuster and clear the way for the ERA to be added to the U.S. Constitution?

It is critical, we MUST end the filibuster — not only for the ERA, but also for protecting our very democracy, for comprehensive immigration reform and a path to citizenship for Dreamers, for federal legislation for voting rights, to raise the minimum wage, to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, deal with climate change, pass commonsense gun laws, reduce violence against women, and to reauthorize the violence against women act.

We must not let a single senator stand in the way of equal rights.

Please join me in urging Senator Manchin to take a stand to end the filibuster now.

We are building a MASSIVE campaign to secure gender equality. The problem, Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia who supports the ERA, but, so far, opposes ending the filibuster. He is one of the few Senators who hang in the balance making or breaking an end to the filibuster to clear the way for equal rights.

The Covid 19 pandemic has revealed that most essential workers are women, disproportionately most are Black and Latina, and most still have their families’ caregiving responsibilities. Let’s face it, today’s economic realities make constitutional rights for women more urgent than ever before.

The evolving realities of 2021 demand that the Senate approves the ERA resolution. It’s time, long overdue, to place in the U.S. Constitution that “equality of rights shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.”

Please join me in demanding action in the Senate now.

For equality,

Ellie Smeal