Rep. Gannon tries again to see Florida ratify ERA
By Jane Musgrave, Palm Beach Post, February 05, 2005
Ronald Reagan was in the White House, Michael Jackson's Thriller album was topping the charts and personal computers were little more than elaborate typewriters the last time Florida was the focus of women's struggle for equal rights.
But unlike 1982, when the eyes of the nation were on Florida lawmakers, few will even know that the state is once again on the front lines in the decades-old battle for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.
For the third year in a row, state Rep. Anne Gannon, D-Delray Beach, is asking lawmakers to turn back the clock and ratify the U.S. Constitutional amendment that would protect women from discrimination.
With new leadership in the legislature, Gannon said she is cautiously optimistic that this year the measure will at least get a hearing.
Feminists who have spent more than 30 years pushing for the ERA's passage say if Florida acts, the measure could be well on it's way to become law — or at least the subject of heated national debate.
"If Florida and Illinois pass it, it wouldn't be that difficult to get one more state," said Martha Burk, chair of the Washington, D.C.-based National Council of Women's Organizations.
While many think the ERA disappeared with disco, Burk said some legal scholars contend that Congress had no right to put a 10-year time limit on its ratification.
In fact, the amendment that replaced the ERA as the 27th amendment — one that deals with Congressional pay raises — was ratified 203 years after it was first sent to the states in 1789.
That means the ERA is still where it was in 1982 when Florida helped bury it — three states shy of the 38 it needs for ratification, Burk said.
Still, despite Gannon's optimism, a Senate companion bill and the written support of 11 lawmakers, the head of the House Judiciary Committee said he won't schedule the issue for a hearing.
"My feeling is the judiciary committee has a very full plate of things to do," said Rep. David Simmons, R-Altamonte Springs.
"I simply don't believe there's time for it. We are dealing with major issues facing this state that are urgent."
Gannon countered that the need for the ERA is equally urgent.
Women still earn about 75 cents for every dollar a man makes. Women who work for small employers can still be fired for getting pregnant.
And unlike the Constitution, laws that protect women, like Title IX or the Civil Rights Act, can easily be changed.
"The saddest part about it is that if we were talking about African-Americans they'd never be able to get away with this," she said.
"But we're talking about sex discrimination, which is much more subtle and pervasive."
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