Date: 2016-03-02
Speaker: CAROLYN B. MALONEY (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: New York

I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Mr. Speaker. I thank my friend. Representative BONNIE WATSON COLEMAN. and the Congressional Progressive Caucus for dedicating this time to talk about passing the Equal Rights Amendmenta cause I have fought for my entire time in Congress. March is Womens History Month. and we have many accomplishments to celebrate and to be proud of. but we must remain focused on the continued struggle for full equality for women. Without the ERA. this goal will not be fully realized. and half of Americans will not realize their full potential. All of us. men and women. stand to benefit from true gender equality. Consider. for instance. some laws that are being proposed across the Nation that have disparate negative impacts on women: In Illinois. a bill sponsored by men is pending that would deny a birth certificate to a newborn of a single mother unless a father is listed on the birth certificate. This would make it impossible for a single mother to enroll her child in a public school. for her child to obtain a drivers license. or for her to collect child support and other benefits for the child. The law is silent on single fathers. In Kentucky. the State senate has passed a bill sponsored by a man that would force all women who are seeking to terminate pregnancies to undergo ultrasounds. whether they want to or not. and to have doctors describe the images to them. While we cannot know for sure how an ERA would affect the outcome of future Supreme Court cases. we have seen that its absence leaves women vulnerable to discrimination without their having legal recourse. These legislative efforts to roll back hardwon progress and to curtail rights are directed squarely at women. You will not find equivalent examples of bills that roll back or constrain the rights of menand men only. Unfortunately. that noble and empowering declaration in our founding document that "all men are created equal" left some of us out. In fact. it leaves about half the population of America out. Many people are actually surprised when they realize that the United States Constitution does not mention women. That omission has. unfortunately. become a glaring problem when it comes to achieving full equalityand not just a problem for women but for families as wellfor everyone. For instance. when women make less than men just because they are women. it is an issue that affects their entire families. We saw that in the case of Lilly Ledbetter. The Supreme Court found that she had been paid less for doing the very same job as her male counterparts. This not only meant that. for years. she made less money than her male colleagues in order to support her family and to provide for her children throughout her working life. but it meant that she would also spend her entire retirement being less financially secure. Such unfair and unequal treatment should certainly be prohibited under our Constitution. Yet the late Supreme Hl111 Court Justice Antonin Scalia famously told an interviewer for the California Lawyer Magazine that he believed that the Constitution does not outlaw this kind of discrimination because. in his view. the 14th Amendment does not apply to women. The 14th Amendment reads that no State shall "deny to any person . . . the equal protection of the laws." To most people. that would seem to be pretty simple and straightforward. but Justice Scalia argued that the word "person" should not apply to women. In his view. when it was written. it was only meant to apply to the recently emancipated slaves. The problem here is that there is ambiguity about whether or not gender discrimination is explicitly prohibited by the Constitution. The only solution to this challenge is to plainly include women in the Constitution. So between the State and congressional legislators who believe it is permissible to roll back hardwon rights and to pass legislation that unfairly and unequally burdens womenand the idiosyncratic views of Supreme Court Justices who declare women are not peopleit is essential to pass the Equal Rights Amendment in a brief amendment that simply reads: "Women shall have equal rights in the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." Lets put women in the Constitution at long last. Research shows that 75 to 90 percent of Americans mistakenly believe that the ERA has already passed and that men and women are equal under the law. In 2012. a poll asked: Do you think the Constitution should guarantee equal rights for men and women? And 91 percent said yes. including 86 percent of Republicans. The way things stand now. the Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution provides strict guidelines against discrimination based on race and national origin. but it is silent on issues of gender discrimination. When it comes to gender discrimination. the Court has applied a lesser standard that makes it easier to get away with discriminating against women. Plain old common sense and your basic sense of fairness should tell you that the same strict scrutiny. protection against discrimination based on race and national origin. should also apply to discrimination based on sex. So the ERA would establish unequivocally. once and for all. that women are entitled to equal treatment under the law. Equal treatment means equal treatment. Equal means equal for all. women included. The ERA would. once and for all. provide clear. constitutional guidance on gender equity issues. The ERA would lend the force of the Constitution to existing prohibitions against sex discrimination in the workplace or schools. The ERA would stop bias in wages. benefits. hiring practices. and other conditions of employment. If America wants to be a world leader in the promotion of human rights. it needs to lead by example on womens rights. Sadly. in this area. America is exceptional only in a bad way. The U.S. stands out as one of the few nations that does not even address gender equality in its Constitution. As the worlds leading democracy. we are falling behind on womens equality. At a time when we seek to champion democracy around the world. we must guarantee equality here at home. It is time for the United States to secure equal rights for women across our Nation by ratifying the ERA. Progress can all too easily be rolled back. Laws can be repealed. and judicial attitudes can shift. turning women into second class citizens. It seems like I spend a majority of my time here in Congress just fighting to hold on to what we already have. trying to keep it from being rolled back. An ERA would protect the progress made on womens rights from any shifting political trends. Women are still not receiving equal pay for equal work. According to the U.S. Census Bureau. women still earn 78 cents for every dollar earned by a man. and this has contributed to older women being the largest segment of poverty in our great Nation. Because when you are paid less. your pension is less. your 401(k) is less. your Social Security is less. and that happens to have profound effects on women. Just this past week there was an article in The Wall Street Journal that talked about the largest group of people that are growing in the workforce are older women. and this is because they cannot afford to retire. They have to continue working because of the discrimination in pay and because of having taken times when they werent in the workforce to take care of a sick parent or to nurse and raise a child. Sex and pregnancy discrimination persists in the workforce. Governmental programs. such as Social Security. still unequally provide benefits to men and women. An ERA would be a womans best defense against harmful practices that punish her simply because she is a woman. We cannot keep fighting discrimination against women one battle at a time. constantly playing defense. Passing the ERA will put women on equal footing in the legal system of all 50 States. particularly in areas where women have historically been treated as second class citizens. We have 186 bipartisan cosponsors of H.J. Res. 52 in the House. which I proudly introduced with Representative CYNTHIA LUMMIS of Wyomingjust 32 shy of a majority. It reflects the strength of the belief that women should be included in the Constitution and guaranteed equal treatment under the law. It is time to stop making excuses. Women and likeminded men have to demand that Congress and State governments get this done. Equal means equal. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. and I thank her from the bottom of my heart for really organizing this important Special Order.