Voters across geographic and partisan divides strongly support incorporating additional protections into New York’s constitution that explicitly protect reproductive rights and prohibit discrimination across a wider range of individual characteristics, according to a new poll shared exclusively with Gothamist.
New Yorkers hitting the polls in November will be asked if they support the so-called Equal Rights Amendment, which adds a new set of constitutional protections under the state’s equal protection clause that prohibit discrimination by the government based on someone’s “ethnicity, national origin, age, disability and sex — including their sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, reproductive health care and autonomy,” as detailed in the legislation.
The state’s current equal rights provision, which offers people protections based on “race, color, creed or religion,” was adopted in 1938. The updated language picked up new momentum after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
The initiative’s backers are getting an early start in building more support for the measure. They launched a statewide campaign this week that aims to build on some “hard lessons” learned from the surprising defeat of two other recent ballot measures.
Overall, 71% of voters polled said they would vote in favor of the New York ERA, including 82% of registered Democrats, 51% of registered Republicans and 70% of unaffiliated voters, according to the survey conducted by Global Strategy Group, a left-leaning polling organization.
“If you look at the data, there’s just broad swaths of people across demographic groups who agree with the need to codify those protections,” said Angela Kuefler, a partner at GSG, who has researched similar, abortion-specific ballot initiatives in Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio and Colorado. “I think the urgency is really coming from what [voters] are seeing happening in other states where politicians and government are really restricting those rights and freedoms.”
Supporters of the New York ERA kicked off a grassroots campaign this week to build on the support found in that data and to ensure voters statewide know that this initiative will be on the back of their ballot in November. Organizers say starting a full seven months before the election is essential, especially after the sobering defeat of two other popular ballot initiatives — for same-day voter registration and no-excuse absentee ballots — three years ago in a multimillion-dollar opposition campaign.
“I think we learned a hard lesson in 2021 here in New York when it came to ballot measures that we can’t take anything for granted,” said Sasha Ahuja, the campaign director for New Yorkers for Equal Rights, a ballot initiative committee. “No matter how popular we think issues are, we need to make sure we run a strong, reputable, serious campaign to really get our message out.”
Ahuja continued, “That’s why we filed this campaign early and we’re building a strong coalition.”
The New Yorkers for Equal Rights campaign held its first of 25 days of action with an event on Thursday at the Manhattan headquarters of 1199 SEIU, the city’s powerful and influential health care workers union. So far, the campaign includes some 225 civil and reproductive rights organizations across the state who will be training volunteers to reach voters by knocking on doors, texting and phone banking.
Other coalition members include prominent labor and organizations supporting reproductive, immigrant, civil and voting rights, like Planned Parenthood, the New York Immigration Coalition, the New York Civil Liberties Union, NAACP New York, Make the Road New York and New York State United Teachers union.
Ahuja said the New Yorkers for Equal Rights campaign aims to raise $20 million to support passage of the New York ERA, which supporters say would be one of the largest investments in a ballot initiative campaign in state history. Organizers are also planning a robust media campaign with digital and television ads, along with direct mail.
Since constitutional amendments must pass two subsequent legislative sessions before going before voters on the ballot, New York’s Democrat-controlled state Legislature immediately passed the New York ERA in July 2022 and then again in January 2023.
Ny Whitaker, co-chair of Vote Mama, a political action committee focused on increasing the political power of Democratic moms, said she plans to capitalize on the New York ERA as part of her group’s outreach.
“Personally, I’m going to use it as a tool to register voters in the great state of New York, and for those who might be registered and don’t show up to the polls to use this to get them to re-engage,” Whitaker said. “Because it has a protection for so many different categories of people who live, work, commute and travel to New York.”