Posted on 05/21/2003 8:59:25 PM PDT by TheEaglehasLanded
SPRINGFIELD REPORT: 14th time's the charm -- ERA passes Illinois House
Wednesday, May 21, 2003
By The Leader-Springfield Bureau
State Rep. Lou Lang successfully passed the ERA in the Illinois House -- but no one really knows what that will mean for women's rights, if anything.
SPRINGFIELD -- In a strategic move made leaving the opponents' guard down, State Representative Lou Lang (D-Skokie) called the Equal Rights Amendment for a vote today in the Illinois House and for the first time since 1982, one of Illinois' chambers passed the constitutional amendment halfway to ratification. Vote is available on line "HRJCA 001 roll call".
Depending on whether courts will continue to allow five states that rescinded their ratification to stand, Illinois could be either the 36th state or the 31st state which has ratified the ERA toward the required 38 states for federal ratification to the U.S. Constitution.
"The passage of the ERA has no effect," Phyllis Schlafly, opponent of the ERA since the early 1980s, said today, maintaining that even if the 38th state ratifies, the U.S. Supreme Court will not confirm the effect of the passage in Illinois.
State Representative Terry Parke (R-Schaumburg) argued that ratification of the ERA will require abortion funding nationally, will set the groundwork for legalizing same sex marriage nationally, and will require women to be drafted and placed in ground infantry and submarines if the amendment passes at the national level. He also mentioned the effects federal ratification would have on the Title IX program.
Lang said that he spoke to legislative leaders in five other states who said they were watching what would happen in Illinois before they moved ahead in their respective states.
"Women deserves the rights of every man in society, no one will deny that," Parke told the House members.
"The Constitution renders all things equal and is gender neutral," Lang said.
Representative Bill Black (R-Danville) said he was in the House in the early 80s when goats' blood and pigs' blood was spread on the Capitol floor. "I reject the heated rhetoric on both sides of this issue," Black said. "But this whole issue is moot. The time limit has passed, and the ERA is dead."
"Everything I am I owe to women, but this is moot," he said. "I am not less pro-female than you are."
State Representative Chapin Rose (R-Charleston) agreed with Black that constitutional authorities say the time limit has lapsed not once, but twice, and the vote was unnecessary.
Representative Lang told the House members in closing, "The facts are clear Congress can change the deadline on an amendment at any time. Women will not be forced to serve in submarines."
"Get real, get real..." the representative said. "Some people in your district are for it, some are against it and some could care less."
"Women have not been given the rights they deserve. The business world should not be allowed to ask how many children women have when they apply for a job," Lang told the members.
"The members of this chamber will have an opportunity to do something that is historic to change the Constitution," Lang said.
As the vote was taken in the House, cheers broke out on the Illinois House floor.
A vote -- the 16th attempt since 1982 -- passed the Illinois House by an overwhelming 77 to 41 vote.
The ERA will proceed to the Illinois Senate and can be voted upon as soon as Friday of this week. It will need a 3/5 majority to pass the Senate and will not require the Governor's signature.
Depending on whether courts will continue to allow five states that rescinded their ratification to stand, Illinois could be either the 36th state or the 31st state which has ratified the ERA toward the required 38 states for federal ratification to the U.S. Constitution.
State Representative Chapin Rose (R-Charleston) agreed with Black that constitutional authorities say the time limit has lapsed not once, but twice, and the vote was unnecessary.
I think a suit should be filed immediately if the Illinois Senate votes to ratify. Congress established a time limit for the amendment. It did not get ratified in that time so it is dead. I think the US Supreme Court should rule that it is dead. Otherwise there will never be a timelimit on any proposed constitutional amendment. The 27th amendment passed after a period of over 200 years. If anything, there needs to be an amendment putting a time limit on all proposed amendments that have been approved by Congress but have not been ratified by the states. Seven years after the adoption of that amendment all unratified amendments to the constitution should be considered null and void.
I believe the text of the Equal Rights Amendment includes language stating that it shall have no legal effect unless ratified by the requisite number of states within a certain time of its passing through Congress.
If my memory is correct on that, Illinois's ratification would make it be about as much a part of the Constitution as the 18th Amendment is now.
If that wording was removed after some states ratified the amendment, then unless those states ratified the changed version their ratification should only apply to the original.
Of course, expecting liberals to follow even their own rules is futile.
Lying again. Federal law already protects both men and women from being asked about marital status, children, etc, until they are hired, and even then, it is not required unless you want them covered on your insurance.
Why are state legislatures being asked to ratify the ERA after the 1982 deadline has passed?To which I can only say: Not with this Congress, and not with this SCOTUS.A "three-state strategy" for ERA ratification was developed after 1992, when the "Madison Amendment" to the Constitution was ratified 203 years after its passage by Congress. Acceptance of this ratification period as "sufficiently contemporaneous" led ERA supporters to argue that Congress has the power to maintain the legal viability of the ERA's existing 35 state ratifications. The ERA's time limit is open to change, as Congress demonstrated in extending its original deadline. Precedent holds that rescission votes are not valid. Therefore, Congress could accept state ratifications that occur after 1982 and keep the existing 35 ratifications alive. A bill in the 107th Congress (H.Res.98) stipulates that the House of Representatives shall take any necessary action to verify ratification of the ERA when an additional three states ratify.
The legal analysis for this strategy is outlined in "The Equal Rights Amendment: Why the ERA Remains Legally Viable and Properly Before the States" (William & Mary Journal of Women and the Law, Spring 1997). The Congressional Research Service has concluded that acceptance of the Madison Amendment does in fact have implications for the three-state strategy premise. Since 1995, ratification bills have been introduced in five of the unratified states: Illinois, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Virginia.
Dunno.
I do know that as usual, the nauseating Carolyn "You Have To Vote For Me Because My Husband Was Killed" Maloney, as she always does, reintroduced the ERA in the House on March 12, and as usual it was shoved off to the Subcommittee on the Constitution, from which it shall never emerge. There's also a separate bill that gets introduced like clockwork in every Congress which simply says that when three more states ratify the ERA, the House must verify it into law. That bill, as well, is always shoved off to the same Subcommittee to die, and that's where it's rotting right now.
Once upon a time, I remember reading the proposed ERA in my social studies textbook, and if memory serves the amendment itself contained specific language stating that it would be void if not ratified within a certain timeframe.
Is my memory in error?
I agree. I just want the Supreme Court to rule it dead so no one ever tries to resurect any other amendment after its deadline is passed.
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.
"The ERA was introduced into every session of Congress between 1923 and 1972, when it was passed and sent to the states for ratification. The seven-year time limit in the ERA's proposing clause was extended by Congress to June 30, 1982, but at the deadline, the ERA had been ratified by 35 states, leaving it three states short of the 38 required for ratification. It has been reintroduced into every Congress since that time."
"The bills introduced since 1982 impose no deadline on the ratification process in their proposing clauses."
If Phyllis Schlafly says it won't fly with the Supreme Court, I'm inclined to believe her. No one knows more about this amendment than she does. She was largely responsible for bringing it's momentum to a grinding halt in the 70's.
Eagle Forum
The Debates About ERA
The Equal Rights Amendment was presented to the American public as something that would benefit women, "put women in the U.S. Constitution," and lift women out of their so-called "second-class citizenship." However, in thousands of debates, the ERA advocates were unable to show any way that ERA would benefit women or end any discrimination against them. The fact is that women already enjoy every constitutional right that men enjoy and have enjoyed equal employment opportunity since 1964.
In the short term, clever advertising and packaging can sell a worthless product; but, in the long term, the American people cannot be fooled. ERA's biggest defect was that it had nothing to offer American women.
The opponents of ERA, on the other hand, were able to show many harms that ERA would cause.
ERA would take away legal rights that women possessed - not confer any new rights on women.
ERA would take away women's traditional exemption from military conscription and also from military combat duty. The classic "sex discriminatory" laws are those which say that "male citizens of age 18" must register for the draft and those which exempt women from military combat assignment. The ERAers tried to get around this argument by asking the Supreme Court to hold that the 14th Amendment already requires women to be drafted, but they lost in 1981 in Rostker v. Goldberg when the Supreme Court upheld the traditional exemption of women from the draft under our present Constitution.
ERA would take away the traditional benefits in the law for wives, widows and mothers. ERA would make unconstitutional the laws, which then existed in every state, that impose on a husband the obligation to support his wife.
ERA would take away important rights and powers of the states and confer these on other branches of government which are farther removed from the people.
ERA would give enormous power to the Federal courts to decide the definitions of the words in ERA, "sex" and "equality of rights." It is irresponsible to leave it to the courts to decide such sensitive, emotional and important issues as whether or not the language applies to abortion or homosexual rights.
Section II of ERA would give enormous new powers to the Federal Government that now belong to the states. ERA would give Congress the power to legislate on all those areas of law which include traditional differences of treatment on account of sex: marriage, property laws, divorce and alimony, child custody, adoptions, abortion, homosexual laws, sex crimes, private and public schools, prison regulations, and insurance. ERA would thus result in the massive redistribution of powers in our Federal system.
ERA's impact on education would take away rights from women students, upset many customs and practices, and bring government intrusion into private schools.
ERA would force all schools and colleges, and all the programs and athletics they conduct, to be fully coeducational and sex-integrated. ERA would make unconstitutional all the current exceptions in Title IX which allow for single- sex schools and colleges and for separate treatment of the sexes for certain activities. ERA would mean the end of single-sex colleges. ERA would force the sex integration of fraternities, sororities, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, YMCA, YWCA, Boys State and Girls State conducted by the American Legion, and mother-daughter and father-son school events.
ERA would risk the income tax exemption of all private schools and colleges that make any difference of treatment between males and females, even though no public monies are involved. ERA is a statement of public policy that would apply the same rules to sex that we now observe on race, and it is clear that no school that makes any racial distinctions may enjoy tax exemption.
ERA would put abortion rights into the U.S. Constitution, and make abortion funding a new constitutional right. Roe v. Wade in 1973 legalized abortion, but the fight to make abortion funding a constitutional right was lost in Harris v. McRae in 1980. The abortionists then looked to ERA to force taxpayer funding. The American Civil Liberties Union filed briefs in abortion cases in Hawaii, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Connecticut arguing that, since abortion is a medical procedure performed only on women, it is "sex discrimination" within the meaning of the state's ERA to deny tax funding for abortions. In the most recent decision, the Connecticut Superior Court ruled on April 19, 1986 that the state ERA requires abortion funding. Those who oppose tax funding of abortions demand that ERA be amended to prevent this effect, but ERA advocates want ERA only so long as it includes abortion funding.
ERA would put "gay rights" into the U.S. Constitution, because the word in the Amendment is "sex" not women. Eminent authorities have stated that ERA would legalize the granting of marriage licenses to homosexuals and generally implement the "gay rights" and lesbian agenda. These authorities include the Yale Law Journal, the leading textbook on sex discrimination used in U.S. law schools, Harvard Law Professor Paul Freund, and Senator Sam J. Ervin, Jr. Other lawyers have disputed this effect, but no one can guarantee that the courts would not define the word "sex" to include "orientation" just as they have defined "sex" 'to include pregnancy.
In the final years of the ERA battle, two new arguments appeared. Both were advanced by the ERA advocates, but they quickly became arguments in the hands of the ERA opponents.
ERA would require "unisex insurance," that is, would prohibit insurance companies from charging lower rates for women, even though actuarial data clearly show that women, as a group, are entitled to lower rates both for automobile accident insurance and life insurance. This is because women drivers have fewer accidents and women live longer than men. Most people found it a peculiar argument that "women's rights" should include the "right" to pay higher insurance rates.
ERA would eliminate veterans' preference. This rests on the same type of legal argument as the abortion funding argument: since most veterans are men, it is claimed that it is "sex discriminatory" to give them benefits. Naturally, this argument was not acceptable to the veterans, and their national organizations lobbied hard against ERA.
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