Push for ERA Continues among Arkansas House Democrat Leadership (UPDATE – Fails in Senate Committee)
As I posted last week, it appears that HJR1014, the state resolution seeking to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), 
has stalled in the House Committee on State Agencies and Governmental Affairs; however a couple posts on Robbie Wills blog (one from himself and a guest post from Rep. Lindsley Smith) revels that the House Democrat Leadership has not given up their fight.
Read the posts for their full take but their arguments are basically on two main points. Speaker Wills argues that the amendment is “needed to guarantee for the first time in our country’s history that the rights affirmed by the U.S. Constitution are held equally by all citizens without regard to gender.“ Rep. Smith makes a similar argument but takes a more historical and comparative approach, listing previous ERA backers such as David Pryor and other countries such as Japan that have passed measures similar to the ERA.
Both their arguments ignore several major problems with the ERA. The National Right to Life addressed these two issues in a letter to the Arkansas legislature urging them to oppose the same resolution introduced in 2007.
First, the ERA would open the door for legal challenges of the state of Arkansas’ ban on taxpayer-funded abortions. This is evidenced by the fact ERA measures in other states have been successfully used to argue against bans on taxpayer-funded abortions in those states. In New Mexico, abortion proponents argued successfully in NARAL v. Johnson, that the state ban violated the New Mexico Equal Rights Amendment. The New Mexico Supreme Court agreed with the abortion proponents challenging the state ban of taxpayer-funded abortions concluding that this decision was “based on the independent grounds provided by the Equal Rights Amendment.” This Amendment was modeled after the language of the National ERA that the current Arkansas proposal seeks to ratify. There is little doubt that abortion rights advocates would make similar arguments in Arkansas if the ERA were in effect.
Second, HJR1014 is an attempt to circumvent the process of amending the Constitution in the manner specified. As Speaker Wills points out in his post, the set time period has passed without the sufficient states necessary for ratification. The original 1972 resolution from Congress had a seven-year time limit, which expired in 1979. Congress attempted to extend this deadline to 1982 with a majority vote. A federal court later ruled in Idaho v. Freeman that this extension was unconstitutional. In short, this resolution is an attempt to avoid having to restart the constitutional process by instead resurrecting a prior processes that has in reality expired.
Even though it appears the ERA backers will fail again this year, the fact that the Arkansas House Democrat leadership is speaking out for HJR1014 means we better keep watching this one closely.
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UPDATE - Fox 16 David Goins reports via Twitter the SJR12, the Senate version of the ERA resolution fails in committee by a four to four vote after a lengthy debate. The three Republicans on the committee Gilbert Baker, Bill Pritchard, and Kim Hendren joined with Democrat Bobby Glover to stop the bill.
Meanwhile, Blake Rutherford ponders – What would Sam Seaborn do?
March 2nd, 2009 at 12:06 am
The ERA amendment should have been dead a long time ago. Several states have even withdrawn their prior ratification. Recommend readers read Dr. Pat Briney’s post: ERA Again – Six Reasons to Oppose the ERA http://arkansasgopwing.blogspot.com/2009/03/era-again-six-reasons-to-oppose-era.html
March 2nd, 2009 at 3:57 pm
[...] in Uncategorized I was going to write about this but Tolbert really says it with authority… First, the ERA would open the door for legal challenges of the state of Arkansas’ ban on [...]
March 3rd, 2009 at 12:08 am
Now if we can just save the Electoral College as well.