Rights-amendment push sees renewal

Drafted by a suffragette in 1923, the Equal Rights Amendment has been a source of contention ever since. Many opponents considered it dead when a 10-year ratification push failed in 1982, yet its backers on Capitol Hill, in the Illinois statehouse and elsewhere are making clear this summer that the fight is far from over.

In Washington, U.S. Reps. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., and Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., are sponsors of two pieces of legislation aimed at getting the amendment ratified. They recently organized a pro-Equal Rights Amendment rally, evoking images of the 1970s, outside the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Recent Supreme Court decisions have sent women's rights back to the Stone Age," said Speier, explaining the renewed interest in the amendment. The amendment would stipulate that equal rights cannot be denied or curtailed on the basis of gender.

Participants in the July 24 rally directed much of their ire at the Supreme Court's recent Hobby Lobby ruling. In a 5-4 decision, with a majority comprising five male justices, the court allowed some private businesses to opt out of the federal health care law's requirement that contraception coverage be provided to workers at no extra charge.

"They could not have made the Hobby Lobby ruling with an ERA," Maloney said.

Meanwhile, in Illinois, battle lines are being drawn for a likely vote this fall in the state House of Representatives on whether to ratify the amendment. The state Senate approved the ratification resolution on a 39-11 vote in May, and backers hope for a similar outcome in the House after the Illinois Legislature reconvenes in November.

If the amendment gets the required three-fifths support in the House, Illinois would become the 36th state to approve the amendment. Thirty-eight states' approval is required to ratify an amendment -- but the Equal Rights Amendment's possible road to ratification is complicated by its history.

The Illinois resolution's chief sponsor in the Democrat-controlled House, Deputy Majority Leader Lou Lang -- who said he was close to securing the 71 votes needed for approval -- is motivated in part by Illinois' role in the Equal Rights Amendment drama of the 1970s.

"Illinois was the state that killed it 40 years ago," Lang said, calling that "appalling" and noting that Illinois has such an amendment in its state constitution.

One of the leading opponents of the amendment during the 1970s was conservative Illinois lawyer Phyllis Schlafly, who launched a campaign called Stop ERA and is credited with helping mobilize public opinion against the amendment in some of the states that balked at ratifying it.

Schlafly, now 89, said activists and politicians trying to revive the amendment were "beating a dead horse."

"They lost, and they can't stand it," she said in a telephone interview. "They're doing it to raise money, to give people something to do, to pretend that women are being mistreated by society."

Schlafly's allies in Illinois are gearing up to fight the amendment in the House. The Illinois Family Institute contends the amendment would force women into military combat, invalidate privacy protections for bathrooms and locker rooms, undermine child support judgments and jeopardize social payments to widows.

"There is virtually no limit to the number and kind of lawsuits the ERA will spawn," the institute said.

Lang scoffed at such predictions and said the federal amendment could be a valuable tool in ensuring fair treatment for women in the workplace and in financial transactions.

Written by Alice Paul -- a leader of the women's suffrage movement in the U.S. a century ago -- the Equal Rights Amendment was introduced annually in Congress from 1923 to 1970. In 1972, the amendment won overwhelming approval in both chambers and was forwarded to the 50 state legislatures in search of the needed 38 votes to ratify.

Congress set a deadline of 1979, at which point 35 states had ratified the amendment. The deadline was extended to 1982, but no more states joined, and the Supreme Court upheld a ruling that the amendment was dead.

Aside from Illinois, there have been few signs that any of those states are on the verge of ratifying the amendment.

In Congress, amendment supporters have introduced two measures in pursuit of ratification.

One -- known as the "three-state strategy" -- is a resolution that would nullify the 1982 deadline so only three more states would need to ratify the amendment in addition to the 35 that did so in the 1970s.

The other measure would restart the traditional process, requiring passage of the amendment by a two-thirds majority in the U.S. Senate and House, followed by ratification by legislatures in three-fourths of the 50 states.

A Section on 08/11/2014

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