ERA Runs into a Roadblock

From Illinois and North Carolina the answer again is no

A St.Valentine's Day massacre." So said Illinois State Senator James Donnewald as he assessed the damage done to the Equal Rights Amendment in his state last week.

In the ERA'S first ratification test since Congress last year extended the deadline to 1982, the amendment was narrowly beaten in both Illinois and North Carolina, leaving it still three votes short of becoming the 27th Amendment to the Constitution. At the same time, state senators in Indiana, Montana and South Dakota tried to rescind their previous approval of the amendment, an action of questionable validity but one that reflects the measure's growing difficulties.

Backers mounted their biggest push in North Carolina, where they had the political support of Governor James Hunt. They also enlisted lobbying help from Hunt's wife Carolyn, and two celebrities, Actor Alan Alda and Columnist Erma Bombeck (If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries -What Am I Doing in the Pits?). President Carter pitched in by calling State Senator R.C. Soles Jr. But Soles had already heard from his own constituents, and told Carter he could not back ERA.

The opposition was as well organized as the supporters, and far more boisterous. Some 2,000 chanting, hymn-singing demonstrators, many of them bused into Raleigh by a group of fundamentalist churches, besieged wavering legislators. The anti-ERA crowd filled the air with choruses of Amazing Grace! and waved placards declaring ERA the PUBLIC ENEMY NUMBER ONE. Former U.S. Senator Sam Ervin Jr. added his country-lawyer counsel against the amendment. Said Ervin: "ERA would nullify any laws that make any distinction between men and women. When the good Lord created the earth, he didn't have the advice of Bella Abzug and Gloria Steinem. If any woman is being discriminated against on account of sex in the U.S., there are already laws on the books to handle it."

When an ERA sponsor, State Senator W. Craig Lawing of Charlotte, took a head count, he discovered that he had only 23 votes, to the opponents' 27. The bill then died in committee.

Illinois supporters of the amendment had been beaten nine times since 1972. Last week they tried to lower the proportion of votes in the state senate needed for ratification from three-fifths to a simple majority. The strategy was backed by G.O.P. Governor James Thompson, but only three Republicans in the Democratic-controlled senate went along with him, and the proposal lost, 31 to 24. Accused by ERA supporters of political impotence, Thompson retorted: "I put in my two cents' worth, and my two cents was not enough. Neither was anyone else's."

Announced a discouraged Sheila Greenwald, executive director of Eramerica, after the latest setbacks: "We're not planning new strategy, because in many cases the legislators that defeated ERA the last time are still there." The Justice Department is currently studying the rescinding votes by seven states, including the three voted last week, to determine if they are binding. Even if they are not, the best chance for ERA ratification now rests with election results in 1980. ERA proponents would have to elect enough supporters to change the antiamendment positions of at least three state legislatures. qed

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