In February, in 2025, on social media, a prominent Arizona pastor said: “If we can repeal Roe v. Wade, then I think we can overturn the 19th Amendment.” Shortly before our May meeting, the Kansas City Star reprinted an article from the New York Times which included interviews with that same pastor’s female parishioners. Most said they approved of not allowing women to vote—at least not married women. Meanwhile, in Idaho, a pastor who is head of a network of churches agreed in principle. They all promote the “one vote per household” doctrine, meaning a man’s vote unless a woman is head of a household. 

 In all our 250 years, only once have we repealed a federal constitutional amendment: the 18th Amendment, which imposed prohibition of liquor from 1920-1933. We understand why that one happened. We know about the corruption and the other unacceptable, unintended consequences of its passage. But it isn’t easy to enact, change, or erase an amendment. An example? The Equal Rights Amendment has never made it out of the ratification jungle. In a nutshell: First, it takes an enactment decision by a two-thirds vote in both houses of Congress; or in a constitutional convention called by two-thirds of the State legislatures. Then, when that job is done, you have to produce ratification of the enactment by three-fourths of

the states (38 now; 36 in 1920). For the 19th Amendment, Congress completed enactment on June 4, 1919, and that enactment was finally ratified by 36 states on August 18, 1920, by a vote of the Tennessee Legislature. (More about that exceptional story in another conversation. But,

spoiler alert, don’t you try to tell me your one vote doesn’t count.) And let’s not forget that it was years before some state legislatures moved to do symbolic ratifications. The last, Mississippi, was not persuaded to symbolically ratify the 19th Amendment until 1984. What if this current groundswell of discrimination grows long enough and large enough to endanger suffrage? Seriously, you say? Do you really think the 19th Amendment, in this time

and place, could be subjected to repeal? Probably not. But what is already happening are efforts to procure a “death by surgical cuts” that would adversely affect the voting rights of many “disfavored” people. Take, for example, the recent SAVE Act, which created, among other bad things, obvious voting barriers for many women with name changes. Narrowly, narrowly was the SAVE Act avoided in the last Congressional session. But the SAVE Act, Version 2, is already teed up in the House of Representatives.

LWVJoCo takes a meeting break in July. But please keep working and getting set for August and November. Get your “NO” signs up (as soon as your municipality or HOA allows). Hit those marches and protests, talk to those legislators, support sensible candidates, find new ways to inform and engage your family, friends, and neighbors. Stay tuned. And stay informed. And stay the course.