Tallahassee Democrat says With No Hope of Passing, ERA Returns to the Legislature

ERA Friend Bill Cotterell's article at the cusp of Christmas starts of sounding defeatist but proceeds surprisingly positive.

Bill Cotterell: With no hope of passing, ERA returns to Legislature

Tallahassee Democrat - Tallahassee, Fla.

Author:	Bill Cotterell
Date:	Dec 23, 2010

Document Text

Well, you can't say they didn't warn us.

When thousands of demonstrators marched on the Capitol, urging Florida legislators to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment 30 to 35 years ago, there were always a few signs proclaiming, "ERA Won't Go Away." And sure enough, like an eight-track Bee Gees disco tune on the oldies station, those three little sentences that set hearts aflutter around here from 1973 to 1982 are with us once again.

"Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex," says Section 1, for those who missed the '70s.

"The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article," says Section 2, followed by, "This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification."

Senate minority leader Nan Rich, D-Weston, has re-introduced a ratification resolution (SJR 286) for the 2011 session. It won't pass, partly because the ERA is one of the reasons Nan Rich is minority leader; following its feminist instincts helped the Democratic Party lose the legislative majorities it had when the amendment first surfaced.

That was March 22, 1972, when Congress passed the 27th Amendment and set a 1979 deadline for ratification by 38 states. Like a mad crush, it started strong -- 22 ratifications in the first year -- but only eight states passed it in 1973, three in 1974, one in 1975 and 1977.

Feminists tried to rekindle the ardor, getting Congress to extend the deadline to June 30, 1982, but not one state ratified in overtime. The red-clad women who wore big octagonal "STOP ERA" buttons threw a celebratory banquet in Washington, and President Reagan put his daughter Maureen in a charge of a 50-state project to repeal discriminatory statutes without altering the Constitution.

But in 1992, a different 27th Amendment was ratified, the "Madison Amendment" involving congressional salaries, which had been referred to the states in 1789. ERA supporters reasoned that if 203 years was good for James, we could waive the ERA deadline in honor of Dolley.

Or, at least, get three more states to ratify it and see if Washington goes along. Chances are, Washington would, since Sect. 2 gives enforcement power to Congress -- another reason states won't do it. Whatever else you might read into the Nov. 2 elections, people weren't clamoring to put more power in Washington.

Back when the amendment was leading the network news, when Alan Alda and Marlo Thomas were speaking at rallies on the Old Capitol steps, when first lady Betty Ford was phoning Florida legislators to lobby for the amendment, there were two big objections that seem passe now. If the ERA were ratified, opponents warned, women would be drafted and homosexual couples would get married.

The draft is gone and women serve in almost all areas of the military now -- including, soon, submarines. Gay marriage seemed far-fetched in 1975, but its adoption in some states poses an obstacle for Rich's ratification resolution. Florida voters passed a state constitutional amendment two years ago, defining marriage as a heterosexual union, and that would seem to be superseded by a federal edict.

The ERA's failure should be viewed in the context of its time. That initial surge of ratification came just before the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, legalizing abortion. Backlash against that, coupled with the strong identity of ERA proponents with the pro-choice position, helped fuel the anti-ERA forces.

Proponents had the political establishment on their side back then. Gov. Reubin Askew urged ratification in his "State of the State" speeches at the opening of legislative sessions, and Attorney General Bob Shevin legally rebutted arguments that the ERA would invalidate rape laws or allow men to escape alimony and child support.

Florida would have joined that early push for ratification but for a legal quirk. The House passed the ERA 84-3 on March 24, 1972, but the Florida Constitution required an election to occur between congressional submission and state voting on any federal amendments. The Senate postponed action, confident it would come back and do the job in 1973.

A federal judge later struck down the requirement, saying states couldn't place additional conditions on a federal amendment. But by then the opposition had mobilized and the ERA never regained momentum.

Nationally, the steep fall of the ERA from irresistible force to dormant flop paralleled -- in reverse -- the rise of Ronald Reagan and the religious right. And as the Democrats today disdain the Tea Party voters, ERA proponents badly underestimated the "Stop ERA" forces of the late 1970s.

But in spirit, and sometimes in fact, today's ERA supporters are the great-granddaughters of women who marched for suffrage 100 years ago. The amendment has been reintroduced in Washington, for resubmission to the states, but chances of it getting a two-thirds vote in the new Congress are about as remote as Rich's prospects of getting her Florida colleagues to forget that 1982 deadline and ratify what their forebears rejected 30 years ago.

But it will be back next year, and every year. The ERA, as they used to say, won't go away.

Contact Senior Political Writer Bill Cotterell at (850) 671-6545 or at bcotterell@tallahassee.com.