Equal Rights Amendment champion comes up short in final effort as lawmaker

By DAVID SHARP
Associated Press

A lawmaker who has been pressing for an Equal Rights Amendment for decades has lost her final effort to amend the Maine Constitution before retiring from the Legislature. Democratic Rep. Lois Galgay Reckitt, who is 78 and leaving the Legislature next year, broadened the scope of her amendment this year to ban discrimination against a series of groups, not just women, in the hopes of bringing more support and protecting more people. The strategy appeared to garner more support, and possibly new opponents, and the proposal failed to reach a two-thirds majority Wednesday in the House. Reckitt said she will be back, as a citizen, to testify in support of the ERA again in the future.