Ms. LEROY. I have no further questions. Thank you. Mr. STAREK. Representative Wiseman, in your prepared statement you say you notice a remarkable shift over the past 4 years in support for the equal rights amendment from moderate support to strong opposition to the ERA. I just wondered if you had any hint or any key as to why that has occurred? Mr. WISEMAN. I think it has occurred largely because of the inflammatory and, in many cases, irresponsible statements made about the ERA, statements that are inaccurate. The fact remains the statements have been made and they have been, in a large part, believed. And so the shift is the fact. Whether the basis for the shift is valid or not is something else. And I'd answer it that way. Mr. STAREK. Have you noticed a trend, one way or another, in the respective districts, like Representative Wiseman has, from moderate support to strong opposition? Ms. CARLSON. Mr. Chairman, counsel, I do know that every time we've had a floor vote on the issue of either the equal rights amendment or the extension or something, that the other side-and I'm an opponent. I'm sure that's obvious to you-has been losing ground on every vote that we've taken in the past 6 years. Mr. STAREK. Anyone else? Ms. MCDIARMID. I've been interested to find the kind of new support we've been getting in my State. As has been said before, labor was quite adamantly against it to begin with. The blacks were very lukewarm. Church groups didn't take it up at all. We had a hearing this year that was remarkable in the great support we find in and among those groups, and those groups apparently are willing to work at this point, whereas in the past they weren't. I think that, again, as you said, it is not the substance, but it is the appearance of the problem. I think that Mr. Wiseman said it seems as though the second part might mean so and so. And this is the refrain that I heard all over Virginia from many women, who say it seems as though we're going to have to go out and support our children, we're going to have to go out and get half the money. It seems as though we may have to do these things. Now, none of us expected this kind of a mounted opposition. Now that we have more workers who are willing to work for it, it seems to me that we may-it seems as though we may be able to answer these questions. There are answers, and I think maybe we could do it if we had a little more time. Mr. EGAN. Well, I thought I did say that, as a proponent of the nondiscrimination between sex concept, I think we're losing ground. Mr. McCLORY. I think it's well to remind ourselves that in Ilinois we do have an equal rights amendment in our Constitution, which is comparable to the Federal equal rights amendment. Mr. EGAN. Well, the proponents deny that. But in effect, it's a nondiscrimination clause, and it's a strong clause in the bill of rights, in the State's constitution. Mr. McCLORY. And unfortunately, they use that as an out. They say that we have it in our State constitution, so we don't need it in the Federal, which is not a good argument when we try to get a nationwide law. But it is an argument that's used. Mr. EDWARDS. The time has expired. Since the matter of the support of organized labor was brought up, next Wednesday there will be a representative from the AFL-CIO with a statement from Mr. Meany in support of the extension. The gentleman from Missouri. Mr. VOLKMER. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to ask the panel an ongoing question: Is the leadership of the opposition to the equal rights amendment in your respective legislatures, is it changing, is it diminishing? And I'm talking about either the chairman of the judiciary committee or your president of your senate or your speaker of your house, wherever that main opposition is. Do you see any change in that in the future? Let's start out with Oklahoma. Mr. WISEMAN. Mr. Volkmer, the opposition to EPA in Oklahoma is not lodged in the leadership. Mr. VOLKMER. Is the leadership in favor of it? Mr. WISEMAN. Yes; but not too much. There is a general favorable feeling for the amendment in leadership. But our leadership, as are many leaderships, I guess, eager to protect its vote-and I'd say the opposition to the ERA in Oklahoma is largely outside the legislature. I would say that it is stronger now than it was when I first went to the legislature. And I wouldn't know how to speculate about how it would grow or diminish in strength in the coming years. Mr. VOLKMER. There is no vote on it this year in the legislature? Mr. WISEMAN. We did not vote this year. A new legislature convenes next January, and I don't know if we will be voting on it within the next 3 months or not. Mr. VOLKMER. The leadership of both the house and senate are in favor of it, and yet did not see fit to bring it up? Mr. WISEMAN. It came up last year in the 1977 session, failed by several votes in the house, and the speaker said that that's it for this 2-year session. The senate has, for the last 6 years, avoided the issue completely. Mr. VOLKMER. What about Arizona. Do you see any change in the leadership? I see from the attachments which you have that the leadership basically opposes the equal rights amendment. MS. CARLSON. Yes; the vote is basically, in the house of representatives, a 2 to 1 situation. Again, the leadership has never tried to thwart the amendment and not have a debate or a vote. In fact, our present speaker, Frank Kelley, who was the majority whip, I believe, during 1975-76 legislature, introduced a special new joint resolution after the first one couldn't get out of the committee. We tried. We tried every kind of recommendation to get it out of committee for a floor vote that we could get. Even with putting it out for the consideration of the House, which I don't know how your rules are, but that says, we don't make any recommendations one way or the other, we couldn't even get enough votes to put it out on that motion. So they introduced another one and ran it only through the rules committee and put it on the floor. And the vote was, I believe, 41 nays and 19 ayes. And there hasn't been any change, nor would there be that much change, based on our turnover in our legislators, in the next legislature. But believe me, we will have hearings, and we will probably vote on it again, even though there won't be much change in the outcome. Mr. VOLKMER. You won't see that much change even with the new members that may be coming on because of retirement or other? You don't see any change? Ms. CARLSON. No, I don't see any change. Mr. VOLKMER. What about Virginia? I know about the one in Alexandria last year in the election, but that's one person. Ms. MCDIARMID. That was one person, and it was a person who had four strong-single-vote people against him. However, that put in a new head of the privileges and election committee, and it still didn't get out. The leadership in the house is relatively hands-off on this. They're not finagling to get votes so far. The senate, the leadership is strongly for it. In the house, I think some of the members on the privileges and election committee, which is our judicial committee, are just beginning to seriously look at it. I just have to say that, in spite of all we could do in the last 6 years, there are some people who still think that this thing is going to go away, that it is something that is dreamed up in New York or Harvard somewhere, and it doesn't matter in Virginia. They're beginning to find that it really does, and it's possible we may be able to work with those people. As I said, they're presently not strongly against it. But it is that old feeling that, hey, I'm going to be responsible for the woman in the household and be responsible for the women in the State, not have them have to do what they're told they'll have to do if ERA is the law of the land. Mr. VOLKMER. I just want to say that most of the leadership in Illinois is for it. Mr. EGAN. Yes. The majority is for it, but the division has not been that diverse. Mr. VOLKMER. Thank you. Ms. LEROY. Senator Egan, I just want to ask you one last question: Illinois is put forth as the State where ERA is probably most hotly debated. Would you say that the legislature is equally as divided over the extension question? Mr. EGAN. I don't have any way of telling you exactly, and I can't be precise. If I can't be precise, I hate to speculate. But let me say that there is a lot of legislators who would like to see it go away, and if that answers your question, then I don't think that resolves anything. Ms. LEROY. Are you aware that a number of the ERA sponsors in the House have recently publicly stated that they are for the extension, that they don't want it to go away? That's Republicans and Democrats. Mr. EGAN. Oh, sure, the sponsors. And in some places, they may be in jeopardy of physical harm because of it. But I say that facetiously. But there is division on this issue also. Ms. LEROY. That's all I wanted to know. Mr. EDWARDS. We thank our fellow legislators and the various witnesses for your really splendid testimony, and I compliment you on the amiability with which you address this controversial and difficult matter. I might say from the spirited debate, both there and here on the committee bench, that that is evidence of the vitality and relevance of this particular question. Many of us here feel that when there is a vote on the floor of the house, you should not limit debate, not cut it off. And perhaps we ought to consider that, too. We are cutting off debate if we don't go on a few more years on this very important issue. But that's something to be decided further down the road. We also compliment the audience for their excellent behavior. And tomorrow morning we will meet again with some very talented and interesting witnesses at 9:30 in this same room. Thank you. [Whereupon, at 12:25 p.m., the hearing was adjourned until 9:30 a.m., Thursday, May 18, 1978.] EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT EXTENSION THURSDAY, MAY 18, 1978 U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON CIVIL AND CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 9:35 a.m., in room 2141 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Don Edwards (chairman of the sub-committee) presiding. Present: Representatives Edwards, Drinan, Volkmer, Beilenson, Butler, and McClory. Also present: Representatives Holtzman, Railsback, Walgren, and Heckler. Staff present: Ivy Davis, Catherine Leroy, and Janice Cooper, assistant counsel; and Roscoe B. Starek III, associate counsel. Mr. EDWARDS. The subcommittee will come to order. Today we will continue hearings on House Joint Resolution 638, which provides for an extension of the proposed constitutional amendment on the equal rights amendment. And since there has been such keen interest-and you probably have so many people who would like to be spectators-with your indulgence, the officers will rotate during the course of these hearings about every half hour. We will keep watch, and we would appreciate your indulgence. However, we will rotate your back in again as soon as we can. This resolution was considered by this very same subcommittee back in 1971. As you know, it was passed by the House of Representatives by a vote of 354 to 24, and by the Senate by a vote of 84 to 8. As a matter of fact, when the subcommittee in 1971 reported the bill to the full committee, a number of crippling amendments were added that practically destroyed the resolution. But the House of Representatives itself is now going to reverse what the full committee did and return the language to the language that we had under consideration today. We are going to hear today from Representatives of several groups who have been deeply involved in the States in the ratification process for ERA. We are looking forward to hearing from these witnesses, but first our first witness will be a most distinguished lawyer and legislator, a member of the House of Representatives who has added intelligence and style to the House Judiciary Committee for many years, a colleague from Texas, Hon. Barbara Jordan. (235) 26-365 - 78 - 16 |