For thirty years, Carolyn Maloney represented New York in the U.S. House of Representatives — and spent much of that time fighting for something the country still hasn't officially codified: equal rights for women. She joins Jaclyn for a conversation about the ERA, what real political power looks like, and the Brooklyn backbone that has fueled her whole career.
About This Episode
There is a particular kind of stubbornness that comes from having fought for something your entire career and still not being done. Carolyn Maloney has it. She served in Congress for three decades, representing New York's 12th Congressional District, and across that entire stretch she kept returning to the same unfinished business: the Equal Rights Amendment. The ERA — first proposed in 1923, passed by Congress in 1972, still not ratified as a constitutional amendment — is the thread that runs through everything she has done in public life. This conversation is about that fight, and what it reveals about power, persistence, and the particular brand of Brooklyn grit that doesn't know how to quit.
Maloney grew up shaped by the ethos of a city that rewards toughness and punishes complacency. She came to politics through community organizing and local school board work in New York City before winning her first congressional seat in 1992 — part of what that year's media dubbed the "Year of the Woman," a wave of female candidates who broke into a political institution that had long functioned as if women were guests rather than members. She won her seat by defeating a 16-year incumbent, and from the start it was clear she wasn't there to play it safe.
Her legislative record reflects that. She co-authored the Credit CARD Act, which cracked down on predatory credit card practices. She was a lead author of the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, fighting for years to ensure that first responders who became sick after working at Ground Zero received the medical care they were owed — a battle that required the kind of relentless, unglamorous pressure that Washington rarely rewards but that Maloney kept applying anyway. She chaired the Joint Economic Committee and the House Oversight Committee, wielding genuine institutional power at moments when her party held the majority.
But the ERA was always the cause she returned to. She introduced the ERA in every session of Congress she served in. She argued that without a constitutional guarantee of equality for women, every protection women have is vulnerable — subject to being weakened by the next court ruling, the next legislative session, the next political shift. That argument has not gotten easier to make in recent years. It has gotten more urgent. And Maloney, who left Congress in 2023 after losing a primary reshaped by redistricting, has not stopped making it.
What comes through in this conversation is something that doesn't always survive the translation from political figure to podcast guest: she is direct, she is funny, and she is genuinely energized by the work. There is no performance of exhaustion, no valedictory air. She talks about the ERA the way someone talks about a project they are still in the middle of, not one they are looking back on. That's the Brooklyn in her — the refusal to treat a thing as finished just because it's become inconvenient to keep going.
Jaclyn brings that same spirit to the conversation, and the result is one of the most charged exchanges this podcast has produced. Two women who understand that grit isn't just a personality trait — it's a strategy. That persistence isn't stubbornness — it's what you do when you're right and the world hasn't caught up yet. The fight isn't over. Carolyn Maloney is still in it.
About the Host
Jaclyn Richard is the host of I've Got a Little Brooklyn in Me, a Rochester, NY podcast celebrating the entrepreneurs, civic leaders, artists, and changemakers shaping the city's future. New episodes drop biweekly on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.