Equal Rights Amendment Ratification in Indiana

1 EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT RATIFICATION IN INDIANA: TOO LITTLE . TOO LATE . By By Beth Van Vorst Gray 1998 2 FOREWORD, 2018—AN UPDATE Maybe Not too Late After All! Although Indiana was the last state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) before the artificial deadline set by a House committee for its ratification, the amendment to give women equal status in the Constitution has not gone away; it is very much alive and well. Ratification by Nevada in March, 2017 and by Illinois in May, 2018 are the results of consistent and persistent work towards the goal of passage by many organizations and count as the 36th and 37th state to do so. So, in theory, we are just one state away from ratification. One of James Madison’s amendments continued to work its way through the states more than 200 years after congressional approval. In May 1992, Michigan became the 38th state to ratify, making it the 27th Amendment, which says that salary increases for members of Congress do not go into effect until the term after they were approved. So, supporters of the ERA are questioning the validity of the deadline (the only proposed amendment to carry such a restriction) and . and pushing for more states to ratify it. The deadline has been challenged in court (mentioned in a footnote in the original text of this article, 1998), and, of course, in sustained lobbying efforts for ratification if 38 states. Upon one more state ratification, expect fireworks, more legal challenges, and intense lobbying on the legitimacy of the deadline and the passage of the ERA. Following is an excerpt from the Alice Paul Institute’s webpage, published in June, 2018 that states the present status clearly (www.equalrightsamendment.org). “The ERA in the States. The Equal Rights Amendment was passed by Congress on March 22, 1972 and sent to the states for ratification. In order to be added to the Constitution, it needed approval by legislatures in three-fourths (38) of the 50 states. By 1977, the legislatures of 35 states had approved the amendment. In 1978, Congress voted to extend the original March 1979 deadline to June 30, 1982. However, no additional states voted yes before that date, and the ERA fell three states short of ratification. The 15 states that did not ratify the Equal Rights Amendment before the 1982 deadline were Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah, and Virginia. Since formulation of the "three-state strategy" for ratification in 1994, ERA bills have been introduced in subsequent years in one or more legislative sessions in twelve of the unratified states (Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Utah, and Virginia).” 3 Between 1995 and 2016, ERA ratification bills were released from committee in some states and were passed by one but not both houses of the legislature in two of them. In Illinois, the House but not the Senate passed an ERA ratification bill in 2003, while the Senate but not the House did so in 2014. In five of the six years between 2011 and 2016, the Virginia Senate passed a resolution ratifying the Equal Rights Amendment, but the House of Delegates never released a companion bill from committee for a full vote on the House floor. On March 22, 2017, 45 years to the day after Congress passed the ERA, Nevada became the 36th state to ratify it. On May 30, 2018, Illinois became the 37th state. ERA bills have also been introduced in the legislatures of Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Utah, and Virginia.” Permission to use with credit to www.equalrightsamendment.org 4 FOREWORD, 1998 The Indiana State Senate, on January 18, 1977, adopted HJR 2, a joint resolution approved by the House of Representatives in like form on January 12. With that final action, the 100th Indiana General Assembly ratified the “Equal Rights Amendment” (ERA) after five years of discussion and debate on the local and national scene, and extensive, emotional lobbying by both pro- and anti- ERA forces in Indiana. Indiana was the 35th and last state to ratify out of the thirty-eight states needed to make it the 28th amendment to the United States Constitution. And I was there. Elected in 1970 to the position of Principal Secretary of the Indiana State Senate by the Republican caucus, I remained in that post until August 1976. From January 1973, when the ERA was introduced for the first time in Indiana, until 1976 I had a window on the action. Literally. When in session, my post was in the “well,” a half- circle desk below the podium of the presiding officer; in the remodeled Senate of 1974, my office faced floor-to-ceiling walnut-paned windows which opened on an uninterrupted view of the floor of the Senate. When the General Assembly is in session, the entire statehouse echoes with the dueling loudspeakers of the House and Senate; but I had a front row seat to the action as well. It was, at times, an uncomfortable seat because I was an ERA advocate although I was elected by and reported to the Senate Republican Caucus, generally considered the road block to Indiana’s ratification of the ERA and firmly in control of conservative senators. Under the Standing Rules of the Senate, the majority caucus is responsible for administration of the chambers and elects the Principal Secretary to carry out those duties. The 97th General Assembly (1971-1972) was the first authorized by referendum in the 1970 general election to meet annually. New ground was being broken, precedents set for year-round staffing and professionalism, and systems were being established to provide information available through the Principal Secretary’s office to all members of the Senate and the public. The new Indiana Code was introduced and enacted, and computer technology came on the scene. It was front- page news when we brought a huge Xerox photocopier into a room adjacent to the Senate floor. Prior to 1970, the entire House and Senate, staff and members, were dependent on one sole copier in the legislative support agency that, at that time, closed at 5 pm. Senator Phillip E. Gutman (R., Fort Wayne), President pro tempore of the Senate, to whom I reported, made it very clear that the political life of the Senate was the domain of the Senators; the administrative support system was my responsibility as the Principal Secretary. As an individual citizen outside the State House, however, I was free to express myself at will. My visible support of ratification of the ERA was, however, unpopular with some members of the caucus that elected me in 1970 and twice more – in 1972 and 1974. Although new to the workforce, I realized that women needed the tools to provide for their own and their children’s well-being, especially when the traditional customs and responsibilities of marriage break down; a new generation of young women was 5 entering the workplace fully prepared to be there, but without the same rights of the young men. Women were not issued credit in their own name and equality in pay, still not in balance, was a real joke in the early ‘70s. Harassment and other kinds of discrimination were commonplace and it seemed that no one, except the powerless women who were being discriminated against, even noticed. 6 EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT RATIFICATION IN INDIANA: TOO LITTLE . TOO LATE . By Beth Van Vorst Gray Congressional Action . And Inaction Before the Equal Rights amendment could be considered by the states, the amendment, in the form of a joint resolution, had to be adopted by both houses of Congress. In 1972, when circumstances made it possible to consider the amendment after 50 years of introduction in every session of Congress, political pundits were predicting adoption and swift ratification by the state legislatures. As we now know, Indiana was the thirty-fifth, and last, state to ratify before June, 1977—the deadline for state ratification negotiated by Representative Emanuel Cellers (D., NY) and Senator Sam Ervin (D., NC). The ERA was one of a few proposed constitutional amendments to carry a restriction on the length of time allowed for ratification by the states. As 1977 approached and ratification of three more states was needed, the deadline was extended by Congress to June, 1982 but the three additional ratifications were not found. The amendment itself was simple enough: three short paragraphs, consisting of the final version written by Alice Paul in 1943 (merging the Lucretia Mott version, introduced in prior sessions, and the Susan B. Anthony version). “Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” “Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” “Section 3. This amendment shall take effect seven years after the date of ratification.” The equal rights amendment was introduced every year from 1923 until adopted by Congress in 1972 and, stubbornly, every year after the ratification extended timetable ran out, which was from 1983 to present. In the 107th Congress (2001-2002), Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D., MA) introduced the ERA in the U.S. Senate, word for word as written in 1923, as SJR 10; Representative Carolyn Maloney, (D., NY) introduced it as HJR 40 in the House of Representatives. During the 1960s, Representative Cellers (D-New York) held the Equal Rights Amendment prisoner in his powerful House Judiciary Committee where it stayed for more than a decade.

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