Real hope for constitutional protection for equal rights

Bill Knight column for 1-27, 28 or 29, 2020

My first grandchild was born the morning when thousands of people braved freezing temperatures to participate in Chicago’s Women’s March blocks away. I pray the world will be warmer and welcoming for her and all women, and a positive step occurred that week when the Virginia legislature became the 38^th state to ratify the Equal Right Amendment.

It’s been years since Illinois and Nevada, in 2018 and 2017, respectively, ratified it, and generations after Congress passed it in 1972 and sent it for the required ratification by three-quarters of the states.

First proposed in 1923, the ERA seemed dormant for years, recently revived after non-partisan concerns ranging from the Me Too movement and ongoing disparities in pay equity to Brett Kavanugh’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court and memories of ex-Sen. Joe Biden’s treatment of Anita Hill during Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ own confirmation hearing in 1991 – plus President Trump’s past and ongoing behavior toward women, of course.

Virginia’s Jennifer Carroll Foy, co-sponsor of Virginia’s House of Delegates’ ERA resolution, on Jan. 15 said, “Which side of history do you want to be on?  The world is watching: your mothers, your sisters, your daughters; 160 million women and girls across this country are waiting.”

Eleanor Smeal, president of Feminist Majority, said, “I always knew this day would come. It has never been a question of if, but only a question of when. The fight for the ERA has been long because we’ve had a powerful entrenched opposition who has wanted to preserve the old order of women being forced to work twice as hard for half as much and paying more for less. But this time of taking advantage of women and their families is coming to an end.”

Opponents for decades exaggerated the ERA, but it’s straightforward: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.”

Renewed enthusiasm could also stem, from the growing awareness that laws and court rulings can come and go much easier than constitutional protection – or its absence.

“Women are realizing that nothing that we have is permanent,” said Kate Kelly, an attorney at Equality Now. “Nothing is too sacred to be rolled back, and things that we have taken for granted in the past are now up for grabs.”

Now up for grabs is the ratification process.

Legislatures in Idaho, Kentucky, Nebraska, South Dakota and Tennessee backtracked on previous approvals; deadlines set in 1972 and 1982 passed; and Assistant U.S. Attorney General Steven Engel in a Justice Department memo this month said because of that, it’s too late to ratify.

However, his opinion is only advisory, without the weight of law or a court decision. And the Constitution doesn’t mention amendment deadlines or states rescinding votes. In fact, the 27^th amendment prohibiting Congress from changing federal lawmakers’ pay during a term was approved in 1992 but actually passed Congress centuries earlier: 1789.

Further, Illinois’s Steven Andersson, a former Republican lawmaker from Geneva who supports the ERA, said the amendment itself doesn’t mention a deadline, which appears only in language introducing the measure.

Still, Right-wing interests could impede ratification for years.

Nevertheless, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring has anticipated legal challenges, and for months has prepared to push for its acceptance.

“If we have to go to court, I won’t hesitate,” he told the Associated Press.

“We recognize that this is not the last fight for the ERA,” said Smeal, a past president of the National Organization for Women. “We are entering into a legal fight for it to be recognized.”

Maybe it’s a new grandpa’s feeling of hope, but I’m optimistic that the country could move to a stronger, better place for the 51% of the U.S. population that’s female – and granddaughter Alice.

Often charmed by coincidences, I found my mood boosted a bit more when I realized the original ERA was co-written by a suffragist and women's rights activist named Alice (Paul).