By VERNON ROBISON
Moapa Valley Progress
The Nevada State Legislature experienced a blast from the past last week as one Senate Committee held a hearing on a subject last debated in the Capitol a generation ago. The Equal Rights Amendment, which failed to win state ratification by a 1979 deadline, was brought back again, this time before the Senate Committee on Legislative Operations and Elections, for a discussion on Wednesday, April 8.
The amendment passed both houses of the U.S. Congress in 1972. It fell three states short of the 38 needed to win ratification by a 1979 deadline. But Senate Joint Resolution 16, before the committee last week, presented an effort to revive the issue and get the amendment ratified by the Nevada Legislature in 2015. Ratification would require a simple majority vote of both Assembly and Senate.
The resolution’s sponsor, Senator Pat Spearman, D-North Las Vegas, told committee members that the problem of gender inequality is far from over in the United States.
“While women enjoy more fairness today than when the ERA was proposed, hard won laws against sex discrimination do not rest on any unequivocal Constitutional foundations,” Spearman said. “Thus, they can be reversed or repealed. The need for a federal Equal Rights Amendment remains as compelling today as it was in the 1970s.”
Spearman admitted that many people would argue that the time for ratification of this amendment was over and past. But she said that legal precedent had been set indicating this is not the case. She pointed to the 27th amendment. This measure, which regulates how members of the U.S. Congress receive salary increases, was originally proposed in 1789 but not ratified by the states until 1992.
In the case of the ERA, though the Congress had set a clear deadline for ratification of the amendment, Spearman claimed that the deadline was only specified in the resolving clause of the measure and not in the amendment itself. This allows for the door to be opened again for ratification in the future if Congress determined it is necessary, Spearman claimed.
“This is one of the most historic pieces of legislation the State Legislature has considered in many years,” Spearman said. “Given the social and political advances in recent years, I’m surprised that this Resolution has not already been adopted.”
Committee chairwoman Patricia Farley said that she would allow 30 minutes to each side for public comment.
Nevada State Democratic Party chairwoman Roberta Lange spoke to the committee in favor of the resolution.
“Women do not have equal rights in this country,” Lange said. “There is a lack of specific language in the Constitution. Now is the time to bring our State in line with the Equal Rights Amendment.”
Marla Turner, President of Democratic women’s organization EMERGE Nevada, stated that though women outpace men obtaining college bachelors degrees, they statistically only earn 77 cents for every dollar of what men earn.
“We are still waiting for equality,” Turner said. “We are only asking to be treated fairly and the laws are not currently allowing that.”
When the floor was open for those expressing opposition to the resolution, Janine Hansen of Nevada Families for Freedom said that it felt like deja vu all over again.
Hansen, a resident of Elko, said that she had been in the forefront of the opposition to the ERA back in the 1970s.
“I was here at the Legislature back in 1973, 1975 and 1977 when it was defeated,” Hansen said. “And I was here in 1978 when 68 percent of Nevadans voted against it.”
Rather than help women, Hansen said that the amendment would do them harm.
“It would eliminate the opportunities for any differences in gender to be permitted in the law,” she said.
She mentioned special considerations for pregnant women in the workplace, food programs for needy mothers, social security benefits for stay-at-home moms, exemptions from war-time combat for women and gender differences for public restrooms, jails and hospitals would all have to be eliminated under the amendment.
“The ERA is not a bunch of platitudes about things for women, it would actually harm them,” Hansen said.
Testifying by teleconference from Las Vegas, Logandale resident Lindsey Dalley told committee members that he believes in equality, but is opposed to the resolution.
“It eliminates essential gender characteristics in the law that are necessary for families, our culture and our legal system to function,” Dalley said. “Eliminating what little gender discrimination may still exist is best done with a more targeted approach.”
The hearing ended with no action from the committee.
