ERA Dies

But its backers will try again

The press conference was called to admit defeat, to say that the ten-year drive to win ratification for the Equal Rights Amendment was over. But Eleanor Smeal, president of the National Organization for Women, which led the push for the ERA, still had fire in her eyes, like a boxer who felt robbed by the judges and was demanding a rematch. "It's been a long and tough fight," she said. "The forces against equality are large. But support for the ERA is overwhelming. The campaign is not over. We know that we are the wave of the future."

Smeal's announcement came six days before the deadline for passage. The amendment had been approved by 35 states, three short of ratification. No state had voted for the amendment since Indiana in 1977. ERA supporters concentrated their last-ditch efforts in Florida and Illinois. Passage by these states, they reasoned, might lead Oklahoma or North Carolina to reconsider their earlier decisions and push ERA over the top. Florida's house of representatives voted to ratify the amendment last week, but the state senate, which had rejected the amendment four times before, knocked it down once more, 22-16. ERA opponents in the galleries applauded politely; supporters broke into angry chants of "Vote them out!" Said Billie Bobbitt, a Florida spokeswoman for the ERA: "We've learned to smile and be sweet, but we aren't going to play that game no more."

The final blow came the next day in Illinois. ERA activists have been hindered by a rule requiring that amendments to the Constitution be approved by a three-fifths plurality of the state house and senate. Despite intense lobbying, legislators have refused to agree to a rules change that would require only a simple majority. When the Illinois house put the amendment to a vote, it was 103-72 in favor, four yes votes shy of passage. At week's end the senate fell five votes short of a three-fifths majority, with a vote of 31-27 in favor. Lamented State Senator Dawn Clark Netsch: "What is really distressing is that Illinois remains the only northern industrial state not to ratify the ERA."

The Illinois house vote prompted seven ERA supporters to end their 37-day hunger strike and resignedly toast one another with grape juice in plastic champagne glasses. But after the senate vote, more militant feminists dropped plastic bags filled with animal blood outside the capitol and scrawled the names of prominent ERA opponents in the fluid. Nine women were arrested and led away in handcuffs. Republican Governor James Thompson, whose tepid support of the ERA angered proponents, termed the blood smearing "vile and disgusting" and likened it to "painting swastikas on synagogues."

Phyllis Schlafly, who has led the opposition to the ERA, happily pronounced it "dead." Said she: "ERA will take its place with the Prohibition and the child labor amendments as ones which did not have enough support of the American people to be in the Constitution." Her own "profamily" group, Schlafly added, "will be active in the future."

Supporters of the ERA plan to reintroduce the measure to Congress on July 14, thus starting a new ratification drive. Congressman Don Edwards, a California Democrat, is leading a bipartisan drive to obtain 200 cosponsors. Senator Paul Tsongas, a Massachusetts Democrat, claims to have 41 co-sponsors in the Senate. But, say supporters, even should the amendment pass Congress--and that is a big if, given the current conservative bent of the Senate in particular--it will be at least an estimated ten to 15 years before the ERA becomes part of the Constitution.

Smeal and NOW intend to redouble their efforts on a number of fronts.

She promises that women "will take on those interests" that defeated the ERA the first time. Lawsuits and boycotts, she says, will be used against insurance companies and other businesses that supposedly overcharge or otherwise exploit women. Also high on the NOW hit list are lawmakers and Governors who opposed the amendment. "Women are in a token position politically," she says. NOW will "not again seriously pursue the ERA until we've made a major dent in changing the composition of Congress as well as the state legislatures" to include more women and "men who are genuinely feminists." The women's movement, vows Smeal, will become "a third force." Already NOW is raising upwards of $1 million a month, more than the Democratic National Committee. Says Sonia Johnson, one of the Illinois fasters: "We have gotten smart, and now we must get strong and get even."

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