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April 3, 2013

Senate committee fails to pass ERA ratification bill on April 2

SJR 19, a bill ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment, failed to pass out of the Arkansas Senate's Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs on Tuesday, April 2. The committee, which includes 5 Republicans and 3 Democrats, rejected the bill by a voice vote along party lines.

ERA bills were also introduced in the state's 2005 and 2007 legislative sessions and failed to get out of committee by tie votes in both years. Primary sponsors of the 2013 bill are Sen. Joyce Elliott (D-31) and Rep. Warwick Sabin (D-33).

Lindsley Smith, former AR Representative and primary sponsor of the 2007 ERA bill, testified in favor of the bill.

Coverage: Associated Press, Politicus USA

Further information: Berta Seitz, Coordinator, Arkansas ERA Coalition (berta.seitz@cox.net)

Equal Rights Amendment resurfaces as issue

myFOXtampabay.com

April 9, 2013

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Women's-rights activists are trying to revive a campaign to add Florida to the list of states that ratified the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

A proposal (HCR 8001) seeking to make Florida the 36th state to ratify the 1970s-era amendment was reviewed Tuesday by the House Local and Federal Affairs Committee.

The committee didn't vote after hearing from amendment supporters, including one who urged lawmakers to "have the backbone" to vote.

Rep. Lori Berman says women have made great strides toward equality but insists the amendment is needed as a "fundamental legal remedy" against any remaining gender discrimination.

A law professor says a vote might have no binding effect since the ratification deadline long passed. Supporters say Congress or the courts could accept more ratification votes.

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Illinois Lawmakers Push State to Ratify Decades-old 'Equal Rights Amendment’

mystateline.com

April 15, 2013

SPRINGFIELD -- More than 40 years after it passed Congress and 30 years after the 'Equal Rights Amendment' lapsed after failing to get 38 states needed to ratify it, three state Representatives are introducing a bill to have Illinois ratify it. If passed, Illinois would be the first state since 1982 to pass the Equal Rights Amendment. 35 states did pass the 'ERA', but the act expired in 1983 before getting approval in 2/3rd's or states, meaning even adoption by three more states would not legally ratify it as an amendment to the Constitution.

Supporters believe that after passage by three more states, they could then argue in the courts that that the time limits imposed by and later extended by Congress for passage of the 'Equal Rights Amendment' are not legitimate because time limits are not mandated by the Constitution. Some legal analysts have expressed doubts that the Supreme Court would overturn previous rulings requiring a "sufficiently contemporaneous" time period for an amendment to the Constitution, or overturn a deadline self-imposed by Congress.

Re-passage of a new Equal Rights Amendment by two-thirds of Congress and 38 states is seen as highly unlikely politically.

The 1972 Equal Rights Amendment states the following:

• Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
• Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
• Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

It was passed at a time when gender discrimination was rampant, and supporters believed the only way to address it was with a Constitutional Amendment. Opponents argued, however, that women are already covered under the Constitution's 'equal protection clause' and that creating a separate amendment only for women would create more legal problems for women than it solved.

Reps. Lou Lang, Kelly M. Cassidy and Naomi D. Jakobsson disagree. They have introduced the 'Ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment' bill in the Illinois House. They argue the Amendment is needed because, as they wrote in a news release, "women do not have constitutional protection when it pertains to sexual and gender discrimination, fair and equal pay and the guarantee of a fair and balanced trial when a woman is raped-including women in the military."

It goes before the House Judiciary Committee for consideration on Tuesday [Apr. 16].

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[Further information: Marena Groll, nc4era@gmail.com]

NC4ERA ALERT
April 30, 2013

After more than 40 years, North Carolina will walk back onto the historical stage with an Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) vigil coming on the heels of Mother's Day.

The "Simple Justice, Long Overdue" Support the ERA! event will be held on Wed., May 15, 2013, from 12 noon – 2:00 pm, on the grounds of the NC Legislative Bldg., 16 West Jones Street, Raleigh, NC.  Attendees are encouraged to bring their own signs to express support for the ERA.

This vigil will mark the anticipated May 9 introduction of a bipartisan joint resolution in the U.S. Congress to remove the deadline for the states' ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). The lead sponsors of the legislation are Sen. Benjamin Cardin (D-MD) and Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) in the Senate and Rep. Robert Andrews (D-NJ) in the House.

We strongly urge NC residents to immediately contact U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan's office at 202-224-6342 and request that she become an original co-sponsor of the Senate bill before May 9.  (A bill number will not be available until the legislation is introduced.)

North Carolina is one of the 15 states that have not yet ratified the ERA.  Legal analysis supports the premise that if three more states ratify, the existing 35 state ratifications achieved during the 1972-82 campaign are still valid.

If you plan on attending the May 15 event or have questions, please contact Marena Groll at nc4era@gmail.com.

Resolution Calls for ERA Ratification

April 3, 2013

A resolution calling on both houses of Congress to pass legislation aimed at putting the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) into the U.S. Constitution has been gaining political and grassroots support in North Carolina since the beginning of March 2013.

Marena Groll of Sneads Ferry drafted the Onslow Initiative Resolution after attending a Mar. 2 ERA program in Washington, DC, led by the National Women's Political Caucus and co-sponsored by the American Association of University Women and the ERA Task Force of the National Council of Women's Organizations.

"It's exciting to see this kind of enthusiastic response," Groll said. "Many would hardly see us as the county to stage the comeback push for the ERA in North Carolina."

The ERA states "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex."

It was passed by Congress in 1972 but fell three states short of the 38 needed for ratification by a June 30, 1982 deadline.  Legal analysis indicates that despite the time limit, the 35 existing ratifications may still be viable if three more state legislatures approve the amendment. 

The Onslow resolution promotes national legislation to implement both this "three-state strategy" and the traditional ratification process described in Article V of the Constitution. 

Although North Carolina is one of the 15 states that did not ratify the ERA between 1972 and 1982, Groll predicted, "This initiative could well put us on the map as ground zero in the struggle for the simple and long overdue justice of the ERA.  As one of the last three states needed, we could make history."

Interest in the Equal Rights Amendment is growing both statewide and nationally as women's participation in the public arena increases dramatically at the same time as efforts intensify to reverse some of women's political and societal advances.

"In hindsight," Groll said, "we see how much our country advances as women advance. Evidence from the 22 states that have had some version of a state ERA for many decades shows that the cultural fears of what women's equality would look like are unfounded."

An April 2012 poll for Daily Kos and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) asked respondents, "Do you think the Constitution should guarantee equal rights for men and women, or not?" The replies were 91% yes, 4% no, and 5% not sure.

While only Democratic and progressive grassroots organizations have endorsed the resolution so far, Groll encourages support for the ERA as a bipartisan issue.

"The Republican Party adopted support of the ERA in its national platform in 1940, four years before the Democratic Party did," she said, "but then dropped it in 1980.  We encourage North Carolina Republicans to lead their party's return to its historic support of this guarantee of the right of the individual to be free from sex discrimination under the law."

State and national information about the ERA can be found online at www.era-nc.org/ and www.equalrightsamendment.org.

[Text may be amended as appropriate to apply to other organizations.]

A Resolution calling for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment and removal of the time limit.

Whereas, the U.S. Constitution does not explicitly guarantee that all of the rights it protects are held equally by all citizens without regard to sex and the only right it specifically affirms to be equal for men and women is the right to vote in the 19th Amendment, 1920; and

Whereas, the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause has never been interpreted to guarantee equal rights for women in the same way the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) would as demonstrated by the fact that currently cases of sexual discrimination receive only a heightened level of intermediate scrutiny but should receive the highest level of strict judicial scrutiny, just as racial discrimination does; and

Whereas, the ERA ensures that women will have equal rights under the U.S. Constitution, and the 2012 Democratic National Platform reaffirms women's rights as civil rights as well as its continuing support of the ERA; and

Whereas, the ERA was passed by Congress in 1972 and ratified by 35 of the 38 states necessary to put it into the Constitution, yet was debatably assumed to have expired in 1982; and

Whereas, more recent legal analysis supports the conclusion that the Constitution imposes no time limit for ratification of amendments; Congress can alter time limits in the proposing clauses of amendments; and ratification of the Madison (27th) Amendment 203 years after it was first proposed supports the premise that state ERA ratification votes since 1972 are sufficiently contemporaneous;

Now, Therefore, Be It Resolved, that we call on all members of the U.S. House and Senate to co-sponsor, support, and pass into law joint resolution bills* for both the traditional Article V ratification process of the ERA and also for the "three-state strategy" process that would remove the time limit for ratification of the ERA so that ratification shall be achieved upon the affirmative vote of 38 states, of which 35 have already ratified; and

Be it Further Resolved, that support for either strategy is not mutually exclusive with support for the other; and

Be it Finally Resolved, that the Democratic Party of ________________ County pursue grassroots and legislative strategies for passage of the ERA and support of the Article V and three-state strategies to put the Equal Rights Amendment into the Constitution.

Approved by the ________________ County Democratic Party, this ____ day of  ______, 20___.

Signatures:  

Party Chair_____________________________________________

Party Secretary__________________________________________

* The Senate traditional ERA ratification bill, S.J. Res. 10, was introduced March 5 by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ); bill numbers of other ERA joint resolutions in the U.S. House and Senate will be available upon introduction in the near future.

Resolution adopted by:

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