Removing Deadline for Ratification of Equal Rights Amendment
Floor Speech
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Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of equality and the principle that our Constitution was designed, not to shore up the dominance of the historically powerful, but to ensure the rights of all and to foster a society in which each of us is free to shape our future based on our abilities. The resolution today removes the deadline Congress put in place for the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment. While ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment is imperative to enshrine equal rights for women, I do not believe it is necessary to strike the deadline for ratification. By voting on this legislation we may imply that it is necessary for Congress to lift a self-imposed deadline. I do not prescribe to this view.
Congressional authority to propose Amendments to the Constitution and the mode of ratification is absolute. The language of Article V of the Constitution represents the Founders intent to create a stable government designed for change. Article V requires two-thirds of the House and Senate to propose an amendment. Congress can choose ratification through three-fourths of the state legislatures or state ratifying conventions. Once the amendment is proposed to the states, there is no Constitutionally imposed time limit on the ratification process. Article V of the Constitution is silent with regard to when a state must consider and ratify an amendment. For example, the ratification process for the 27th Amendment took more than two hundred years.
Historically, Congress has ratified amendments without specific time limitations. The first amendment to contain a time limit was the 18th Amendment which established the prohibition of alcohol. The text of the 18th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd Amendments each contained language limiting the time frame for ratification. In contrast, the text of the Equal Rights Amendment ratified by the states does not contain a time limit. It is the proposing clause sent to the states for ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment which contains a seven-year time limitation. The language of a proposing clause is not binding. The current ratification process of the Equal Rights Amendment is properly before the states and is reasonable and sufficiently contemporaneous.
Having been ratified by Virginia, according to Article V, the ERA has become part of the Constitution. Furthermore, if the deadline is binding, then passage of this resolution, without passage in the Senate, does not cure the defect. Because the deadline is not binding, this resolution is not necessary, but also not harmful.
Women continue to face additional hurdles in the pathways to success. On average, women still earn less than men for the same job functions. Pregnant women often lack basic protections and reasonable accommodation in the workplace. Perhaps most concerning of all, violence against women is still widespread and undermines the educational and social potential of women and young children in this country.
I am proud to have worked with my Democratic colleagues in the House to pass legislation to remedy these inequalities. The House recently passed the Protect the Right to Organize Act (H.R. 2474) which protects workers who are trying to form a union. In most of America, women earn less than men, but women and men working under a union contract receive equal pay for equal work. We have worked to fill the gaps in the patchwork of existing laws governing how and when workers take time off to care for themselves and their families. Expanding the Family and Medical Leave Act to cover more working parents and low wage workers who are currently excluded from leave policies is a top priority.
Nearly two thirds of minimum wage workers in the United States are women. The House has successfully passed the Raise the Wage Act (H.R. 582). This will raise the income levels of the most economically insecure households and is a step in the right direction towards pay equity. The Pregnant Worker's Fairness Act (H.R. 2694) is an important piece of legislation that will provide reasonable accommodations to pregnant women in the workforce. The House also passed the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act (H.R. 1585) which expanded protections and provides critical funding for victim services, law enforcement training, and data collection.
However, even if all this legislation were to become law, it would not be the same as amending the Constitution to guarantee women equal rights.
Discrimination in the workplace, violence in the home, and institutional barriers require systemic legal and cultural change. Ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment provides an additional legal tool for combatting discrimination on the basis of sex.
We will continue the fight for equality and work towards a more inclusive and equitable society.
Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Madam Speaker, over the course of many years, I have consistently sponsored and promoted women's rights legislation to ensure equal pay for equal work including most recently, the Paycheck Fairness Act.
In the struggle against wage discrimination, I voted in favor of 2009 the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
To help ensure that women are not disadvantaged in their careers because of time taken to attend to their families, I was an early and strong advocate of multiple legislative initiatives to provide family medical leave--including the groundbreaking bill that became law, the Family and Medical Leave Act.
And this year, I have cosponsored the FAMILY Act.
I voted to ensure that women's rights are protected in higher education by strongly supporting Title IX.
I have supported legislation to amend pension and tax policies that negatively impact women and I supported numerous bills to establish certain rights for sexual assault survivors including the Survivors' Bill of Rights which is now law.
Since the mid-1990s, I have led the effort to end the barbaric practice of human trafficking, a human rights abuse that is a perverted and unimaginable exploitation of women and girls that thrives on greed, disrespect and secrecy.
Twenty years ago, the U.S. Congress approved and the President signed legislation that I authored--the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000--a comprehensive whole-of-government initiative to combat sex and labor trafficking in the United States and around the world.
The Violence Against Women Act (See Division B) was reauthorized and significantly expanded by my law. Last year, I cosponsored the Violence Against Women Extension Act of 2019.
This past January, I authored another bill that was signed into law-- my fifth major law on human trafficking--The Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Act.
After a young college student from my district, Samantha Josephson, was brutally murdered by the driver of what she thought was her Uber ride, I introduced Sami's Law to make the ride share safer for all. In recent months it has been shocking to learn that thousands of women who use Lyft or Uber have been sexually assaulted and some have been murdered.
I arrive at the debate on the elimination of the deadline for the ERA from the perspective of my work to ensure equality and protection for women and every woman's right to be treated fairly and without exploitation.
The words of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the legal impermissibility of extending the deadline for ratification have sealed the fate of the proposed amendment. Justice Ginsburg's judgment is that the deadline has expired and that she ``would like it to start over'' presents a definitive view that the process has come to an end.
According to Vox, Justice Ginsburg also said ``There's too much controversy about latecomers, plus, a number of states have withdrawn their ratification. So, if you count a latecomer on the plus side, how can you disregard states that said `we've changed our minds?' '' Five states--Idaho, Kentucky, Nebraska, Tennessee, and South Dakota--voted to ratify the ERA but later rescinded that ratification.
Today, however, one thing is absolutely clear from both sides of the abortion divide: ratification of the ERA with its current wording will likely overturn laws prohibiting public funding of abortion--like the Hyde Amendment--and undo modest restrictions on abortion including waiting periods, parental involvement, women's right to know laws, conscience rights including the Weldon Amendment and any ban on late term abortion including the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act.
Should the ERA be ratified without clarifying abortion-neutral language--to wit: ``Nothing in this Article shall be construed to grant or secure any right relating to abortion or the funding thereof''-- abortion activists will use the ERA as they have successfully used state ERAs in both New Mexico and Connecticut--to force taxpayers to pay for abortion on demand.
Consider this:
The Supreme Court of New Mexico ruled in 1998 that the state was required to fund abortion based solely on the state ERA and said the law ``undoubtedly singles out . . . a gender-linked condition that is unique to women'' and therefore ``violates the Equal Rights Amendment.''
In like manner, the Supreme Court of Connecticut invalidated its state ban on abortion funding and wrote in 1986: ``it is therefore clear, under the Connecticut ERA, that the regulation excepting . . . abortions from the Medicaid program discriminates against women.''
Today in Pennsylvania, activists are suing to eviscerate the abortion funding restriction in that state claiming that the Hyde-type restriction violates the Pennsylvania Equal Rights Amendment.
While I take issue with abortion activists who refuse to recognize an unborn child's inherent dignity, worth and value, at least activists on both sides agree that the ERA as written will be used in court as a means to compel public funding of abortion and to strike down the Hyde Amendment and other modest abortion restrictions at both the state and federal level.
NARAL Pro-Choice America plainly states: ``With its ratification, the ERA . . . would require judges to strike down anti-abortion laws . . .''
A senior lawyer of the National Women's Law Centers said: ``The ERA would help create a basis to challenge abortion restrictions.''
The National Right to Life Committee states that ``the proposed federal ERA would invalidate the federal Hyde Amendment and all state restrictions on tax-funded abortions.''
And the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops agree and wrote ``One consequence of the ERA would be the likely requirement of federal funding for abortions . . . (and) arguments have been proffered that the federal ERA would . . . restrain the ability of the federal and state governments to enact other measures regulating abortion, such as third-trimester or partial birth abortion bans, parental consent, informed consent, conscience-related exemptions, and other provisions.''
According to the most recent Marist Poll (January 2020), 60 percent of all Americans oppose using tax dollars for abortion, seven in ten Americans including nearly half who identify as pro-choice want significant restrictions on abortion, a majority of Americans--55 percent--want to ban abortion after 20 weeks, and nearly two-thirds of Americans oppose abortion if the child will be born with Down Syndrome.
I believe that all human beings--especially the weakest and most vulnerable including unborn baby girls and boys--deserve respect, empathy, compassion and protection from violence.
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