The Leaders of Our National Equal Rights Amendment Alliance, Inc.

SANDY OESTREICH is our Founder and President
​Here is what she owns up to, explaining "When you get this old, you tend to collect a whole bunch of things after your name":
  • Prof. Emerita, Adelphi U., NY
  • Fmr. elected official
  • Co-author, internationally distributed pharmacology reference texts
  • Nationally certified Nurse Practitioner of 35 years; Clinical Nurse Specialist
  • Member, 3 Nurse Practitioner professional organizations
  • Biographied in Feminists Who Changed America
  • Nat'l ERA Alliance, Inc, is a Lead Organization of the nationwide ERA Coalition,
  • Member, national ERA Action
  • Member, Vision2020, Advisory Board-for women's empowerment
  • 2016 Nominee, "WOMEN'S SUMMIT", DC
  • 2015 Finalist, St Petersburg FL "Best Nonprofit Business"
  • 2014 Recipient, AAUW/FL "Woman of Distinction"
  • 2012 Recipient, County LWVoters Susan B. Anthony "Failure is Impossible" award
  • Wife and mom    
Our president is well-experienced as Change Agent and thus capable in her current role:
  • As university professor, Sandy Oestreich facilitated the Nursing Department’s curriculum for freshman students to change focus to a patient-oriented one. 
  • Set in motion St. Petersburg's (FL)  Main Library's adoption of inter-library loans, which had been stalled for 40 years previously.
  • With her Coalition, turned St. Petersburg, FL into one of only two in America to bring the city hospital in compliance with the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, bringing successful suit by her Coalition for Religious Freedom against the city of St. Petersburg, Florida.
  • Initiated and facilitated state legislation to require standards and licensing of non-nurse midwives.
  • Based on overwhelming scientific research, her organization was able to keep fluoridation of drinking water out of her county of residence for nine years.
  • As Vice Mayor, she created and passed ordinances that keep “adult” facilities out of town, and to create a drug-free and sex harassment-free workplace.
Then, she remembered that the essential peg for girls' and women's empowerment, the Equal Rights Amendment, was still not nailed to the U.S. Constitution.  Thus the effort to ratify 3 more states, then pass the ERA began again in earnest.  

She just knew ERA had to be passed; she did not know how, knew nothing of the process, did not even know that ERA had to be created and filed  as legislation!  She started with stumbles, wins and losses, gradually grew a thick enough political skin and began to re-ignite ERA with the Year 2000 independent and nationwide respected survey by ERA Campaign Network (Dr. Jennifer MacLeod and Dr. Dorothy Rothman) showing that 96% of both males and females believe in equal rights for all Americans.  The 2016 similar survey supported by the ERA Coalition--a sister-organization aiming its purpose at different wording that proposes that ERA be started over again, again passed out by U.S. Congress, and ratified by 38 of the 50 states got even stronger results:  This time, 94% of Americans endorsed Passing the ERA!

Sandy Oestreich has now been at leading this renewed ERA passage effort since the Year 2000, though she did march with hundreds of thousands of women, men and children for ERA passage during the First Wave of Feminism in the 1970s.  The ERA effort was more vigorous the first time around. The whole nation was on fire for (but only 63%) and against it.  Now, at 94%, it has more covert strength. But the political noose has steadily tightened against its passing, in the converse of the apparent national will.  Democracy does not seen to be at work for its passing, but we and others are avidly engaged in loosening those knots.  Sandy says to legislatures, "Don't make me DIE before you do this, because You WILL pass it; might as well do it now, for everybody's good, even your OWN."
Honorable PATRICIA S. SCHROEDER is our Board Chair
Former Member of the U.S. Congress from Colorado, and now
the Honored Chair of our Board!

The Hon. Patricia S. Schroeder, MC, has honored us by sitting as Chair of our National Equal Rights Alliance Inc. Board since its inception, 2001;  ERA Inc. is a single-issue organization, nonpartisan, nonprofit, nonsexist and open to all who wish to propel the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). As the prime proponent of the re-ignited Equal Rights Amendment ratification movement in Florida—there are 5 other states who also file ERA bills every year—former Congresswoman Schroeder speaks and writes for our organization of 300,000 supporters in 322 major organizations, 7 newspapers, the Florida Association of Counties, usually 49 ERA bill cosponsors, 200 active ERA Regional Teams and 7 Regional Directors.  ERA Inc. has thrived under her leadership.  
  • After serving in the House of Representatives for 24 years, former Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder left Congress undefeated in 1996.  
  • She retired as President and CEO of the Association of American Publishers, the national trade organization of the U.S. book publishing industry.
  • She also heads the New Century/New Solutions think-tank for the Institute of Civil Society.

Born in Portland, Oregon, Ms. Schroeder graduated in 1961 from the University of Minnesota. 
  • She went on to Harvard Law School, and was one of 15 women in a class of more than 500 men.  
  • She earned her J.D. in 1964 and moved to Denver, Colorado with her husband James, who encouraged her to challenge an incumbent Republican for Colorado’s First Congressional District in 1972.
  • The mother of two young children at the time of her election, Congresswoman Schroeder went on to serve 12 terms in the House.  
  • During her tenure she became the dean of Congressional Women, co-chaired the Congressional Caucus on Women’s Issues for ten years, and served on the House Judiciary Committee, the Post Office and Civil Service Committee, and was the first woman ever to serve on the House Armed Services Committee.
  • While a member of the Judiciary Committee, she led the fight for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment and worked in Florida for its ratification during the first ERA effort from 1972 to 1982.  
  • As Chair of the House Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families from 1991-93, she saw the groundbreaking Family and Medical Act and the National Institute of Health Revitalization Act to fruition in 1993, fitting legislative achievements that has capped her lifetime work on behalf of women’s and family issues.
  • Congresswoman Schroeder was active in military issues, expediting the National Security Committee’s vote in 1991 to allow women to fly combat missions, and steering the passage of her Military Family Act in 1995.  
  • She continues her advocacy on behalf of the issues she has long supported, including Florida’s ratification and the passage of the ERA into the U.S. Constitution.  
  • Patricia Schroeder and her husband now are Florida residents, and our friends.
  • She is the author of two books:  Champion of the Great American Family (Random House, 1989), and 24 Years of Housework…and the Place is Still a Mess (Andrews McMeel, 1998).
​We will keep you updated on this ridiculous siege against the Equal Rights Amendment by one political Party who now wages the legislative War On Women, so stay updated by emailing us at SandyO@PassERA.org. Your information is held absolutely Confidential--no one sees the list except our President Sandy--including your telephone number in the rare case of legislative urgency and your state of residence, please­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­.

**ERA is win-win, on the way to effective societal evolution.
​
See us at www.2PassERA.org , Facebook, and @sandyo on Twitter, and learn how we work hard for you for free because we care about YOU, all.
I've told our legislature that they've seen us in the state capitol hallways and their offices, that they will continue to see us there until they pass ERA, whether in a wheel-chair and on oxygen, Because we ARE going to pass it. Men and boys are with us on this, too. So is my feminist  husband who motorcycles, flies, boats and target-shoots.

CHEERS! 
Sandy Oestreich
 
We have the will, the experience, the tools, activists and the supporters to advocate successfully for the Equal Rights Amendment. We are one of the best friends, your daughters and theirs, theirs and theirs will ever have. We hope that you will enjoin this noble challenge alongside us, with our pleased assistance as desired.  See how to help at the ACT Tab