Arkansas Republican Led Senate Committee Refuses to Ratify the ERA

Last updated on April 5th, 2013 at 10:43 pm

Conservatives like to pretend there’s no war on women, but at every legislative turn, they can be found obstructing equal rights for women. In Arkansas today, the Republican-controlled State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee rejected a proposal to ratify the ERA to the U.S. Constitution.

Two Democrats sponsored the legislation, but the committee is comprised of 5 Republicans and 3 Democrats. Seven men to one woman. That’s a ‘no’ to equal rights for women from Arkansas.

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Sure, the deadline was 1982 but hey, these guys have been busy. On March 22, 1972, the ERA passed both the Senate and the House and was sent to the states for ratification. The states were given until 1982 to respond. It is currently April 2, 2013.  Arkansas sure took their time about it.

Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was written in 1923 by Alice Paul and introduced in Congress the same year. It has been reintroduced in every Congressional session for half a century. What awful piece of legislation is this, that can’t pass? Oh, just that rights will be equal, not denied or abridged based upon sex.

The Equal Right Amendment Organization explains why the amendment is necessary:

The Equal Rights Amendment would provide a fundamental legal remedy against sex discrimination for both women and men. It would guarantee that the rights affirmed by the U.S. Constitution are held equally by all citizens without regard to sex.

The ERA would clarify the legal status of sex discrimination for the courts, where decisions still deal inconsistently with such claims. For the first time, sex would be considered a suspect classification, as race currently is. Governmental actions that treat males or females differently as a class would be subject to strict judicial scrutiny and would have to meet the highest level of justification – a necessary relation to a compelling state interest – in order to be upheld as constitutional.

To actual or potential offenders who would try to write, enforce, or adjudicate laws inequitably, the ERA would send a strong preemptive message – the Constitution has zero tolerance for sex discrimination under the law.

Fifteen states have not ratified the EA. They are (wait, take a guess first): Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and Virginia.

In the current 113th Congress, Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) reintroduced the measure.

As even the AP noted, “Similar resolutions failed before legislative panels in 2007 and 2009, after facing opposition from conservative groups.”

Conservatives often complain that the ERA is a federal power grab, citing a clause that just so happens to appear in eight other amendments. This fact suggests that it’s not about a “federal power grab”; it’s about control over women, otherwise they wouldn’t have wasted the last several years attacking women’s freedom and trying to justify rape.

How is not wanting women to have equal protection under the law anything other than a war on women?

Sarah Jones

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