Everyone knows about the presidential election this November, but many New Yorkers aren’t yet aware of important questions on the other side of the ballot.
Democratic Party members in the Bronx are working to inform their neighbors about Proposal 1 (commonly called “Prop 1” or the New York State Equal Rights Amendment), which will appear on the back of the ballot statewide in the Nov. 5 general election.
If passed, Prop 1 would amend the state constitution to add protections against discrimination based on ethnicity, age, national origin, disability and sex, which includes pregnancy and pregnancy outcomes, sexual orientation and gender expression. These would be added alongside existing state constitutional protections for race and religion.
The proposal would also enshrine protections for reproductive health care, including abortion, birth control and IVF. Though the proposal does not explicitly say “abortion,” it is designed to preserve these rights throughout the state.
Local advocates in the Bronx have launched a ground operation to make sure fellow voters know to flip over their ballots to weigh in on this important question.
The Unity Democratic Club, a grassroots political group based in Riverdale, is working hard to get Kamala Harris elected to the presidency and has even chartered weekend bus trips to engage with voters in the nearby swing state of Pennsylvania — but passing Prop 1 is also a top priority for the club.
Morgan Evers, who heads the group’s Prop 1 Task Force, said supporting the proposal means “taking a precaution that we will keep our protections no matter what.”
Evers’ connection to Prop 1 is highly personal. When she was pregnant in 2015, her water broke at only 25 weeks. Under the law at the time, there was no alternative for her but to have the baby, regardless of what her doctor might have advised, she said.
Fortunately, Evers’ son recovered after a month in the hospital and is now a healthy nine-year-old. But the experience made her realize how hard it was to have limited options when her or her baby’s life was potentially at risk. “It was scary,” she said.
Evers said the 2022 Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade came as “a huge shock” — and more New Yorkers should understand that although abortion currently remains legal in New York, those rights are “not a given,” she said.
Sen. Gustavo Rivera, who represents the northwest Bronx’s 33rd District, has joined the club’s efforts to encourage residents to vote “yes” on Prop 1.
The majority of people he encounters support the proposal — once they find out about it, he told the Bronx Times. In New York City and elsewhere, messaging about anything but the presidential race seems largely drowned out.
“A lot of folks don’t know they have to flip the ballot over to look at propositions,” Rivera said.
For voters he has spoken with, reproductive rights “might not be top of mind, but it’s still an important thing” that many believe should be protected, said Rivera.
Many New Yorkers seem to assume these ideas are already enshrined, said Evers. “They think it’s a given and that it can’t be taken away.”
But some conservative groups throughout the state are lobbying against Prop 1’s expanded protections. The state Republican Party argued in an Oct. 16 post on X (formerly known as Twitter) that the language is so broad, it would allow men to self-identify as women in order to enter private spaces such as women’s locker rooms.
“Women’s rights under New York law will no longer exist, since ‘sex’ is subjective,” the post said.
But Evers said she doesn’t believe there is overwhelming evidence for the problems raised by the GOP. Some Unity members have family members who identify as trans, and they are concerned about how to protect their rights, even in a blue state like New York, she said.
As for the GOP’s concern that people might pretend to be a different gender, “I don’t know that it’s as huge a problem as people feeling like they can’t be protected being themselves,” said Evers.
With the election less than two weeks away, many people are paying more attention to politics, whether they want to or not — and Rivera said he hopes the state Democratic Party will spend money on a last-minute push to promote Prop 1, which needs at least 51% of “yes” votes to pass.
“If we run up numbers in the city, we can pass it,” said Rivera.
For more information on Prop 1 — plus five other New York City-specific proposals on the ballot — see https://council.nyc.gov/2024-ballot-proposals/
Reach Emily Swanson at eswanson@schnepsmedia.com or (646) 717-0015. For more coverage, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @bronxtimes