The Equal Rights Amendment is back

TALLAHASSEE - As president of the Business and Professional Women's Clubs state chapter, Sue Banks says she was "dumbfounded" by the reception she received last month from a state senator when she asked him to support ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.
"That's silly," Banks recalled the senator telling her with a laugh, then adding, "You ladies are superior to us already."
Banks declined to identify the fellow Republican, saying she wanted to save him from embarrassment.

Days later, Banks, a Palm Beach Gardens business consultant, was appalled to read comments by Gov. Jeb Bush ridiculing the ERA's revival as a "retro" movement that he said is "like going back and wearing bell bottoms."
That, Banks said, was not the message she expected from leaders whose party is angling for women's votes next year, when President Bush is expected to need Florida's 27 electoral votes for reelection.
"The Republican Party is supposed to stand for individual rights and freedom," said Banks, 53. "To have a party that is wrong on the ERA and yet feels that the female vote is so critical and so important, that's talking out of both sides of our mouth."

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Coupled with his brother's recent decision to study the usefulness of Title IX, the federal law that requires equal opportunities in college sports for men and women, some Republicans worry that the Bush brothers' approach could hurt the president and other GOP candidates in Florida, where moderate female voters can swing elections. .....
While Bush's bluntness has made some people uncomfortable, others in his party are squirming in the face of a wedge issue that so clearly divides the party's loyal, conservative base from its growing dependence on moderate voters.
Toni Jennings, Florida's first female lieutenant governor and a former state senator who opposed the ERA in 1982, now tiptoes around the issue and refuses to take a stand.
"I'll have to do some research on it," said Jennings, who, as a likely candidate for governor in 2006, would rely in part on her appeal to female voters eager to elect a woman to high office.

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The Republican fault lines on the debate were clearly exposed last week, when the amendment won a surprising 6-3 victory in a GOP-led state Senate committee, with three Republicans and three Democrats voting for it.
It was the first vote in the Legislature since 1982 on the ERA, which states: "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex."
Advocates argue that if Florida lawmakers vote to ratify the amendment, the state could push the national movement closer to achieving the 38 states required for adding the provision to the U.S. Constitution. Thirty-five states ratified the ERA when the debate raged in the 1970s and 1980s, and some legal scholars argue that those votes remain viable if three more states can deliver. Others disagree, noting that Congress placed a seven-year deadline on the ratification process.

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Ratifying the ERA in Florida requires a majority vote in the state House and Senate but does not need Bush's signature. Still, the governor's remarks have made him a protagonist for a vocal opposition that consists largely of the GOP's loyal, conservative base.
State House Speaker Johnnie Byrd has joined Bush in opposing the effort, all but ensuring that the ERA will die in the Legislature this year but remain very much alive on the campaign trail next year.
Some critics’ sentiments were summed up in an e-mail from Christian Coalition Deputy Director Carolyn Kunkle to state Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Alex Villalobos, a Miami Republican who backs the ERA. Kunkle declared that the amendment would legalize same-sex marriages and require taxpayer funding for many abortions.

"ERA is a fraud," Kunkle wrote.

Other opponents – including Gov. Bush – argue that they support equality for women but believe the ERA is passé at a time that women are making advancements – a stance that some Republicans believe is a mainstream view held by many women who will continue to vote for GOP candidates.

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New Drive Afoot to Pass Equal Rights Amendment, Washington Post, Wednesday, March 28, 2007; A01


"Elections have consequences, and isn't it true those consequences are good right now?" Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) asked a mostly female crowd yesterday at a news conference, as the audience cheered. "We are turning this country around, bit by bit, to put it in a more progressive direction."