The Equal Rights Amendment"Good Arguments on Both Sides

Drafting Daughters?

The Flagstaff Hepublican Women is perhaps the largest group in Flagstaff opposed to ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment Mrs Eleanore Wren, president of the organization summarized their objections:

1 It is sadly mis named Rather than giving equality" to women, in actuality it would give preferential treatment to men It would force women to leave home and family to work since they would be just as responsible as men for financial maintenance of the borne It could easily render the family

obsolete

2

Wormen would be required to register for the draft at the age of 18 They would be bable for service in all units, including combat duty This is denied by the libbers," but is conceded by eminent jurists, as quoted in the Yale Law Journal

3 Alimony would be imposed equally upon both men and women. How could this be construed as "equal" in cases where the mother had the care of children?

4. Present Laws covering offenses such as sodomy, adultery, statutory rape, seduction laws, laws prohibiting obscene language in the presence of women, prostitution laws would all, in the opinion of the Yale Law Journal, be of necessity invalidated by the courts as the only alternative to a frustrating attempt to extend them to cover men and women on the same

basis

"De most women really want to have all the protections inherent in these laws removed? Are they ready for rape to become legal" And separate rest-rooms unconstitutional?

Whatever abuses of the realm of equal pay for equal work exist can be remedied by laws already on the books some federal, some state. These laws have already been tested in certain instances with verdicts favorable to women, verdicts emanating from the "non-discriminatory" clauses in various "civil rights laws. The ERA is unnecessary and superfluous. 6. "We oppose the principle of further bureaucratic invasion into areas of our lives where the federal government has no business to be and where, according to our Constitution, they have no right to be."

The Yale Lase Journal of April, 1971, studied the ERA and drew some conclusions about the legal effects of the amendment The Phyllis Schlafly Report, published in Fairmount. 1, condensed the conclusions in the May, 1972 issue into seven points, which were reprinted in the newsletter of The Network of Patriotic Letter Writers of Pasadena, Calif

The first three points concern the husband's support obligations, rape and draft, which are covered in Mrs. Wren's statement.

4 ERA will wipe out the right of the mother to keep her Children in case of divorce.

5. ERA will lower the age at which boys can marry

6

ERA will wipe out the protections women now have from

dangerous and unpleasant jobs.

7. ERA will wipe out women's right to privacy."

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-third of each House concurring therein), that the following article in proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislature of threefourths of the several states within seven years from the date of its submission by the Congress;

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."

Thas reads the text of the proposed 27th amendment to the Constitution of the United States, an amendment both strongly supported and opposed by warnen.

At last count, 30 states had ratified the amendment, with eight still needed before it becomes law One of the 30 states, Nebraska, has rescinded its ratification, and others are considering doing so, but Mrs. Ellen Hagelberg, local president of the League of Women Volers, said that the U.S. Congress must approve the actions withdrawing ratification, and she indicated that in previous cases it had not allowed states to change their minds.

Although with the ERA's defeat in the Arizona legislature this year the issue may seem dead, Mrs Hagelberg indicated the League has hopes of bringing it up again during the next legislative session and trying once again to add the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution

Arguments for and against the amendment are being made by thoughtful women, and Flagstaff has both sides of the issue represented.

Equality Under Law

The Flagstaff League of Women Voters, beaded by Mrs. Elles Hagelberg, is the most vocal group in Flagstaff which supports ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.

In literature distributed by the Langue, rebuttals are found t opponents of the amendment

1 According to the Citizens' Advisory Council on the States of Women, The rights to support of women and children are mach more limited than is generally known and enforcement is very inadequate. the legal obligation to support can generally be enforced only through an action for separation or divorce..

2 The National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Club, Inc., said, "Congress now possess the power to include women in any military conscription. However, under the Military Selective Service Act of 1967, only male citizens must register for the draft. The amendment would require that this law. be extended to women equally.

"Once in the service, women, like men, would be assigned to various duties by their commanders, depending on their qualifications and the service's needs. Only those persons men or women who can meet the very high physical demands which combat duty imposes would be eligible for such assignments."

3. The League of Women Voters anid, "In a divorce, the same principle of need and ability to pay will apply to alimony under ERA just as it does now. So also with child support."

4 The League of Women Voters also said, "Criminal laws against rape will still be valid (as well as civil laws applying to one sex, such as medical payments for childbirth).

The ERA won't interfere with the constitutional right of

privacy, which permits separation of the sexes in such public places as public toilets and military barracks."

5. The National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Club, Inc., said There has been some progres toward equal legal rights for men and women in recent years.. Although the Fourteenth Amendment. guarantees "equal protection of the laws," not until 1971 did the Supreme Court strike down a law which discriminated against women....I did not overrule earlier decisions upholding sex discrimination cases in other laws, and it did not hold that mes discrimination is "suspect" under the Fourteenth Amendment."

6 According to the Business and Professional Women's organization, the amendment will affect only governmental action, the private relationships of men and women are unaffected."

The League of Women Voters has listed some types of discrimination now permitted by law, which they feel the ERA would correct:

1 "A married woman may not obtain credit or establish a business without her husband's signature.

2. Contribution of the housewife is not given economic valer

in assessing property owned by the busband and wile.

3 "Property rights of married women are restricted; distribution of property at death is not the same for men and

women."

4"A married woman' income is not considered a part of the economic partnership when a couple applies for a mortgage

lean.

/ ERA hearing debate pits

white hats against black hats

Mr. EDWARDS. You may proceed.

TESTIMONY OF DONNA CARLSON, ARIZONA STATE REPRESENTATIVE, FIRST VICE CHAIRMAN OF THE AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE EXCHANGE COUNCIL

MS. CARLSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I welcome the opportunity to testify here.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to present testimony on behalf of the American Legislative Exchange Council and as a legislator from Arizona.

For the sake of brevity, I will not read the entire statement of the ALEC chairman, the Honorable Woody Jenkins of Louisiana. Mr. Jenkins' statement, along with a composite paper of press comments on the extension, is in the form of a letter mailed to every State legislator on March 8, 1978. In his letter, Mr. Jenkins states:

As a constitutional amendment, ERA deserved a fair hearing. But 7 years is a reasonable time. No other constitutional amendment in our history has ever taken more than 4 years.

When speaking in support of the 7-year rule, ERA proponent Senator Birch Bayh told the U.S. Senate: "The 7-year time limitation assures that ratification reflects the contemporaneous views of the people."

Changing and extending the ratification time for a constitutional amendment is a dangerous precedent to set. Future constitutional amendments could be sent to the State legislatures for indefinite or continued periods of time.

In addition to the serious legal precedent, extending the time for the ERA will open up to legislative and court challenges all the past ratifications and rescissions of ERA, because those States did so under the original 7-year limit established by Congress.

Whether or not it is legal to extend the time period to 14 years, it seems grievously unfair to put the ERA monkey on the backs of State legislators for 14 years. What would you think of a football coach who demanded a fifth quarter because his team was behind?

Speaking now as a legislator from Arizona, I would call your attention to the letters from several Arizona legislative leaders which are attached. They include a brief statement from

The Honorable Frank Kelley, speaker;

The Honorable Peter Kay, chairman of the house judiciary committee;

The Honorable Stanley Akers, former speaker and presently chairman of the ways and means committee;

The Honorable Leo Corbet, former judiciary committee chairman and presently minority leader of the senate;

The Honorable Bob Stump, former senate president and presently Congressman for Congressional District 3;

The Honorable Trudy Camping, State senator;

The Honorable Tom Goodwin, chairman of the house appropriations committee;

The Honorable Ed Swyer, president of the senate.

Mr. Chairman, these letters all have a common theme. They state that the amendment has had full and fair debate in the State of Arizona. They further state that extension of time limitation would be unfair, wrong, and serve no useful purpose.

I would call your attention to the statement of our speaker which specifically speaks to the issue of extension. As you will note, there

are two additional attachments to his letter. One is a copy of a substitute amendment to a memorial offered in Committee of the Whole on March 30, 1978. Second is a copy of the portion of the Journal of the House which deals with the amendment.

The amendment, which was offered on a memorial to Congress dealing with the Orme Dam, substituted a memorial in favor of extension of the time limit on the ERA. The amendment failed by a vote of 13 ayes, 37 nays, and 10 not voting.

The sponsor, not willing to accept the 3 to 1 defeat in Committee of the Whole, then offered a substitute motion to the majority leader's motion, which would amend the report of the Committee of the Whole to read that HCM-2004 be given a do-pass recommendation with the floor amendment which had previously failed. A rollcall vote was requested and the substitute motion failed by a vote of 14 ayes, 44 nays, and 2 not voting. As our speaker stated: "This is a decisive indication that our legislators do not favor the extension."

In addition to the legislator's statements, I have submitted to you a memo which shows the history of all the hearings and committee meetings held specifically on the amendment. Our conservative estimate is 70 hours-exclusive of House floor debate-we do not keep a record of the time we debate each issue-have been spent since 1973. Hearings were also held in the Senate in 1972, and those records are not reflected on the memo. One of your former colleagues, John Conlan, was chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Even though the time for introduction of bills and memorials and the resolution had passed, it was introduced by three of the women legislators-and I might add, for your information, that two of the original sponsors of that resolution in Arizona are now two of the leading opponents to ratification.

The 1972 records are not included on the memorandum, apparently those records have been sent over to the archives and I didn't want to send my aide over to dig them out.

Ms. CARLSON. This is a total of 14 hours per year, and I can attest from personal knowledge that the backsides of many of our legislators have gone to sleep sitting and listening to hours and hours of testimony.

*

As the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee stated, "The only other issue that has taken up more time in the past 6 years has been revision of the entire criminal code"-which we just completed last year, and we're now in the process of some corrective amendments.

Outside of the legislature, there has been a very spirited and continued debate on the issue. During 1975 when I served as vice chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, I personally participated in 90 debates and equal time speeches on the ERA. I put a lot of mileage on both my car and myself that year, because the 90 unpaid public appearances included cities and towns throughout the entire State.

In the printed media, I would suspect the only local issue that has had more column inches would be the trial on the murder of investigative reporter Don Bolles. My aide interviewed Loyal Meek, editor of the Phoenix Gazette, the largest afternoon paper in Arizona, and found that the Gazette had run a yearly average of 20 editorial and 9 syndicated columns. The morning paper, also owned by Pulliam Publishing, had run 47 editorials in 1975 alone and an average of 19

syndicated columns per year. On several occasions, many papers ran full-page articles on the pro and con of the ERA. And when people like Mrs. Carpenter came to Arizona, she usually got at least half a page of coverage. I have reduced three samples and submitted them with this testimony.

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I believe the information I have supplied shows that the proposed 27th amendment has had full and fair debate in Arizona. We have, in the course of the controversy, examined our statutes and corrected inequities where they existed.

In 1973, we went through all of our statutes and changed the laws which were discriminatory. That was called the "equal rights bill"House bill 2280-and it took a lot of work to go through the entire statutes of Arizona.

We have determined by the flood of constituent letters and calls, that the people of Arizona do not favor ratification and feel that the issue of women's rights is being properly handled on the State and national legislative levels. However, Mr. Chairman, we have many other issues that demand attention, and the 14 hours per year that we have spent on the ERA could be used to address those issues in the future.

But anyway, Mr. Chairman, we feel that the issue has been debated, the arguments have been set forth, and the extension of time limitation is unfair, and probably wouldn't serve any purpose other than taking up a lot more of our time that we could spend dealing with the issues that demand our attention.

Thank you very much.

Mr. EDWARDS. Thank you very much, Representative Carlson.

Our next witness is Hon. William J. Wiseman, Jr., a member of the Oklahoma House of Representatives.

Representative Wiseman, we're pleased to have you here today, and we'll receive your written testimony.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Wiseman follows:]

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM J. WISEMAN, JR., DISTRICT No. 69, (TULSA COUNTY), HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, STATE OF OKLAHOMA

I urge you to reject the proposal that the Congress should extend the time limit which was originally imposed for ratification of the proposed Equal Rights Amendment. As one who is opposed to any discrimination by which an individual is prejudiced, I nevertheless oppose altering the ratification period for a variety of constitutional, policy and strategic reasons. I would urge, rather, that you permit the proposed amendment to wither by its own terms; and that you redraft and resubmit a new Equal Rights Amendment to the States for ratification, an amendment which is more limited in its scope and less uncertain in its meaning.

In order to explain the basis for my conclusions, let me tell a bit about the ERA's struggles in Oklahoma, and about my interactions with those struggles. I think that our experience in Oklahoma may be fairly typical of those states which failed to ratify the amendment in the first rush of enthusiasm and good spirits. After this first wave of rapid and casual assent there was, in a number of perhaps less sophisticated states in uncertain pause, a hesitation, followed by controversy, anger, confusion, ill-will, and growing ambivalence among the saved. When I first entered the Oklahoma Legislature in 1974, I was a strong advocate of the ERA, and I have voted for ratification on a number of occasions during my two terms in the House. I believe that most of the opposition to the ERA was the uninformed raving of a group of frightened souls who somehow saw the amendment as an affirmation of all the things which they detested in a frightening,