[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 71 (Thursday, April 27, 2023)] [Senate] [Pages S1403-S1406] From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Date: 2023-04-27
Chamber: SENATE
Ms. MURKOWSKI: I thank Senator Cardin for his leadership on this issue, not only in this Congress but in the previous Congresses when we have attempted to advance this very important measure. What we have in front of us right now is S.J. Res. 4, an amendment to add the Equal Rights Amendment to our Constitution. It is pretty simple. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. It is as simple as that. That is it. That is the full substance of the Equal Rights Amendment. We refer to it as the ERA. I think most people in this country believe that it is already a part of the Constitution, that it is already a protection under it. Justice Scalia stated more than a decade ago now:  Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't.  A little bit of the history here: The ERA was first proposed back in 1923, 3 years after ratification of the 19th Amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote, fully 100 years removed from where we are today. Now, 50 years later, the ERA finally passed Congress, was signed by President Carter in 1972. There was a 7-year deadline for ratification. Thirty-five States moved quickly, including the State of Alaska, within that deadline. It was extended once, in 1982, to give the remaining States some more time to consider it. But momentum waned as other things took precedent. The ERA didn't go away, though. Nevada, Illinois, and Virginia became the 36th, the 37th, and the 38th States to ratify it between 2017 and 2020. And so where we are today is there are 38 States that have ratified the ERA. That meets the threshold of the three-quarters of the States that are needed to ratify a constitutional amendment, but that can't happen because of a technicality because the preamble of the ERA contains an outdated deadline for ratification.  And that is where our simple resolution comes in. It removes that arbitrary deadline to reflect what has actually happened instead of what Congress thought was going to happen some decades ago. It would affirm the Equal Rights Amendment has been ratified by 38 States, met the threshold to be made part of the Constitution, and allow that to finally occur. Now, some have suggested that the ERA is no longer needed. We have certainly made great strides as women since 1923, but there is a lot more that needs to be done. Women are a majority of the U.S. population but continue to be underrepresented in elected office, in the courts, in the business world, and in so many other areas. There remains, of course, a pay gap. We know of this. We hear the statistics all the time--a pay gap between men and women: 18 cents on the dollar according to the GAO--and that gap is wider across industries and within certain groups, to 22 cents on the dollar for women at private, for-profit companies and 23 cents for full-time managers. As the Senator from Maryland has mentioned, the ERA is also needed to help address violence against women. Statistics from the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, for example, show that 1 in 7 women compared to 1 in 25 men have been injured by an intimate partner. Again, what the Equal Rights Amendment provides: It would establish fundamental protections against discrimination based on sex. Every one of us should agree that such discrimination is completely unacceptable and that every citizen, regardless of sex, should enjoy the same rights under our Constitution, and that is all we are doing here today. Again, equality of rights under the law should not be denied on account of sex. It shouldn't be controversial, but just about everything nowadays somehow is. There has been debate about whether Congress has the authority to act on this resolution. I believe we do. There is no constitutional provision, there is no law, no Supreme Court decision telling us that we can't. The Constitution contains no time limit for ratification of amendments, and there is clear precedent for States taking years-- decades, even centuries--to do so. The 27th congressional pay act amendment was ratified in 1992. That was a full 203 years after it was enacted in 1789. Another issue that has been raised is the five States that have attempted to rescind their ratification, but the Constitution does not contemplate rescissions, and there is clear precedent for Congress determining that rescinding an amendment after ratification is ineffectual. In 1868, Congress adopted a concurrent resolution declaring that the 14th Amendment had been ratified despite the fact that two States--New Jersey and Ohio--had attempted to rescind their prior ratifications. Again, the purpose of the ERA is to secure full equality for women, and there should be no time limit on that. Men and women should be treated equally under the law, and that is not a controversial position; it is a widely held view. The fact of the matter is, the vast majority of Americans support the ERA: 73 percent, according to one poll from 2020; 78 percent according to another; and 85 percent according to a poll from last year, including 93 percent of Democrats, 93 percent of Independents, and 79 percent of Republicans. At least half of the States have Constitutions like Alaska that guarantee equal rights based on sex in some way. So I am proud, again, that our State stepped up in 1972 and, a few months later, by an overwhelming vote, amended our constitution to prohibit sex discrimination. Mr. President, we are at the point where we are going to take a vote here right now. I am not entirely pleased by the timing of our debate on this resolution because we have not yet secured the 60 votes needed for its passage. I don't really like it being used as a filler on the floor, as somewhat of an exercise that runs the clock in a largely empty legislative calendar. I don't see how the ERA or women in this country will ultimately benefit from that, but I am proud to lead this resolution with Senator Cardin. I am proud to be working with him and others that, again, would see through the hollow arguments against the Equal Rights Amendment and would join us in passing it. The American people are waiting for this. It is long overdue for Congress to act.