‘Doctor Evil’ on the Equal Rights Amendment – and a response

Last Friday was the deadline for bills to get a hearing in committee in the Arizona legislature. The Arizona Capitol Times reported, ERA, criminal justice reform, legislative immunity bills left to die (excerpt):

Equal Rights Amendment

Perhaps the most high profile legislation that failed to get committee hearings before the deadline carried national implications for women.

Arizona Democrats failed in their third attempt to push the Legislature to vote on ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment, which seeks to amend the U.S. Constitution to bar discrimination on account of sex.

The Democrats’ fight is part of a decades-old battle that began in 1972, when Congress passed the ERA. In order to be adopted, 38 of the 50 states needed to ratify the measure by 1982 — the deadline set by Congress.

Decades later, 37 states, with Nevada and Illinois signing on in recent years, ratified the amendment. Arizona could have been the final state to adopt the amendment.

Democrats lost a key ally when freshman Sen. Tyler Pace withdrew his support on January 31. Three other Republicans in the chamber had expressed support for the measure, and, along with Tyler’s backing, Democrats would have had the votes to pass ERA in the Senate.

In the end, the number of floor votes didn’t matter because the ERA bills never got a hearing in Senate Judiciary, which is chaired by Sen. “Fast Eddie” Farnsworth. In the House, Speaker Rusty Bowers never assigned the legislation to a committee.

So the GOP white male patriarchy killed equal rights for women, again. So much to my surprise, I read in the Arizona Republic the other day an op-ed by “Arizona’s (unelected) 31st Senator,” lobbyist Cathi Herrod aka “Doctor Evil” of the Center for Arizona Policy, the religious zealot lobbying group. Why an Equal Rights Amendment would hurt more than it would help.

If the ERA bills cannot get even a hearing in the GOP white male patriarchy of the Republican-controlled Arizona legislature — in large part the result of the undue influence of “Arizona’s (unelected) 31st Senator” — what is “Doctor Evil” so worried about? Does she fear that there may actually be enough Republicans in the Arizona legislature who do not fear the wrath of her religious zealots to join with Democrats to pass the ERA in a procedural vote? (Something Democrats tried but failed to do last year when the House was adjourned to prevent a vote. On Equal Pay Day, Arizona Republicans block vote on Equal Rights Amendment).

Herrod’s op-ed makes clear what her true concern is: anti-abortion extremism. Without it, the Center for Arizona Policy no longer has reason to exist and could not fundraise millions of dollars from anti-abortion zealots that helps to pay for Herrod’s lucrative lobbyist salary “livin’ la vida loca.” The key passage from her op-ed:

Perhaps the most egregious consequence of a 2019 ERA is its effect on abortion. Because it would be a constitutional amendment, the ERA could enshrine abortion into the Constitution by arguing such a procedure cannot be treated any differently than other medical procedures for a man. Abortion activists in New Mexico and Connecticut have already successfully made that case based on their state ERAs.

This not only makes abortion a routine medical procedure, but it could very well roll back any commonsense restrictions of abortion. Such extreme abortion laws, similar to ones in New York and pending in Virginia, do not reflect Arizona’s values.

Herrod disingenuously writes earlier in her op-ed, “Who can disagree with equal rights for women? No one.” But clearly she does. Her lucrative lobbyist career depends on it. She identifies what she fears most above: that women’s health procedures “cannot be treated any differently than other medical procedures for a man” — true individual equality, which does not currently exist under either the Constitution nor state or federal laws. And she knows it.

UPDATE: Maya Salam recently wrote an “In Her Words” column for the New York Times which is far superior to the bullshit talking points from Cathi Herrod regretfully published by The Arizona Republic. What Is the Equal Rights Amendment, and Why Are We Talking About It Now?

“It’s 2019 and I still don’t have equal rights under the Constitution. Neither do any of you, the nearly 162 million women across the U.S.”
— Alyssa Milano, in a recent Cosmopolitan article about the E.R.A.

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Do you understand the Equal Rights Amendment? That’s been my go-to party question lately, and to my surprise, most people don’t politely excuse themselves for a refill when asked.

The most common responses I’ve heard, especially from women my age, were to the effect of: “Don’t we already have that?” or “That was a ’70s thing, right?”

In fact, we don’t have it — and it wasn’t just a ’70s thing. And yet until recently, I too had little idea what it was. (Sorry to my feminist friends, young and old, who are surely horrified by this gap in knowledge. The chapter was unsurprisingly absent from my history books.) So I asked two leading E.R.A. advocates, Carol Jenkins and Carol Robles-Román, to explain what the Equal Rights Amendment is and why we’re talking about it. Here’s what I learned.

Why does the E.R.A. matter?

Because women don’t currently have equal protection under the United States Constitution. By some estimates, 80 percent of Americans mistakenly believe that women and men are guaranteed equal rights, but the only right the Constitution explicitly extends to both men and women is the right to vote.

The E.R.A., a proposed amendment to the Constitution, would guarantee equal legal rights for all American citizens regardless of sex. It would also require states to intervene in cases of gender violence, such as domestic violence and sexual harassment; it would guard against pregnancy and motherhood discrimination; and it would federally guarantee equal pay.

Doesn’t the 14th Amendment make it unnecessary?

Not exactly. The E.R.A. was first proposed in 1923 but wasn’t passed by Congress until 1972. It then needed to be ratified by 38 states by 1982 (a mostly arbitrary deadline) to be added to the Constitution, but only 35 states ratified it in time.

During the 1970s and ’80s, Ruth Bader Ginsburg helped to persuade the Supreme Court to extend the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to prohibit unequal treatment on the basis of sex — similar to what the E.R.A. would have done. But supporters said that clause doesn’t go far enough, particularly when it comes to violence against women, sexual harassment and equal pay.

The amendment also has symbolic value. “I would like to be able to take out my pocket Constitution and say that the equal citizenship stature of men and women is a fundamental tenet of our society like free speech,” Justice Ginsburg said in 2017.

The undoing of the E.R.A. is largely considered the handiwork of one woman: Phyllis Schlafly, a proudly anti-feminist Republican, who rallied housewives to fight the amendment in the 1970s.

Her argument was mostly that women already had equal rights, but also that the E.R.A. would tear apart the traditional family structure and strip women of remaining privileges, such as having separate bathrooms and college dormitories for men and women. These are the same arguments opponents have made in recent years as E.R.A. efforts picked up steam. [See Cathi Herrod’s op-ed parroting this old fear mongering above.]

Why are we talking about it again now?

In 2017, Nevada ratified the amendment, an effort led by State Senator Pat Spearman, a Democrat. “It was then that other states said, ‘Wait a minute, you mean we can still do that?’” Robles-Román told me.

In 2018, Illinois followed suit. And last month, Virginia came close to being the 38th and final state needed to ratify the amendment — until the state House killed its progress.

So just one more state is needed for the E.R.A. to move forward?

It’s a start. Aside from finding another state to ratify, the 1982 deadline would need to be repealed or overruled — an effort to do so is currently in the works by Jerry Nadler, the House judiciary chairman, Robles-Román and Jenkins said. (There are questions about whether a deadline can in fact be imposed for ratifying an amendment.)

Another potential obstacle: Five states have since rescinded their ratifications, though the Constitution speaks only to a state’s power to ratify an amendment, not to the power to rescind a ratification, which may lead to another legal entanglement.

Regardless, there’s renewed hope among supporters, especially with the House now in Democratic control and more women than ever in office. “So much of this now is the energy and the momentum,” Robles-Román said.

Are you ready to see the E.R.A. added to the Constitution?