BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AJR 18
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AJR 18 (Skinner)
As Introduced April 16, 2013
Majority vote
JUDICIARY 8-1
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|Ayes:|Wieckowski, Alejo, Chau, | | |
| |Dickinson, Garcia, | | |
| |Maienschein, Muratsuchi, | | |
| |Stone | | |
| | | | |
|-----+--------------------------+-----+--------------------------|
|Nays:|Wagner | | |
| | | | |
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SUMMARY : Requests that Congress pass Senate Joint Resolution
No. 10, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the United States
(U.S.) Constitution, subject to ratification by the legislatures
of three-fourths of the states, to ensure that equality of
rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the U.S.
or by any state on account of sex. Specifically, this
resolution makes the following findings:
1)The ERA ratification bill has been introduced as Senate Joint
Resolution No. 10.
2)The ERA was first written by Alice Paul, the head of the
National Woman's Party, and has been introduced in every
Congress of the United States since 1923 in order to guarantee
that the rights affirmed by the U.S. Constitution are held
equally by all citizens without regard to sex.
3)The ERA would provide a fundamental legal remedy against sex
discrimination for both women and men.
4)The ERA would clarify the legal status of sex discrimination
for the courts, where decisions still deal inconsistently with
such claims.
5)The ERA would make "sex" a suspect classification, as race
currently is, so that governmental actions that treat males
and females differently as a class would have to bear a
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necessary relation to a compelling state interest in order to
be upheld as constitutional.
6)The ERA was first passed by Congress in 1972, but was three
votes shy of the 38-state requirement for ratification. The
ERA has been reintroduced in Congress each year since 1982 and
has seen legislative activity in eight of the 15 unratified
states.
7)The first, and still the only, right that the U.S.
Constitution specifically affirms to be equal for women and
men is the right to vote under the 19th Amendment, and it was
ratified by the states in 1920.
8)The 14th Amendment's equal protection clause has never been
interpreted to protect against sex discrimination in the same
way that the ERA would. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
has said he does not believe that the U.S. Constitution,
specifically the 14th Amendment, protects against sex
discrimination.
9)In the cases of Craig v. Boren (1976) and United States v.
Virginia (1996), the United States Supreme Court declined to
elevate sex discrimination claims to the strict scrutiny
standard of review that the 14th Amendment requires for
certain suspect classifications such as race, religion, and
national origin.
10) The ERA has not been ratified in 15 states -- Alabama,
Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana,
Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South
Carolina, Utah, and Virginia.
11) The state constitutions of Alaska, California, Colorado,
Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana,
Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey,
New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Utah, Virginia,
Washington, and Wyoming all provide guarantees of equal rights
on the basis of sex.
12) Without the addition of the ERA to the U.S. Constitution,
legislation and case law that has resulted in extraordinary
progress for women has the potential to be ignored, weakened,
or reversed. By a simple majority in the Congress,
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legislation can be amended or repealed, the presidential
administration can weakly enforce these laws, and the U.S.
Supreme Court can continue to use intermediate scrutiny when
reviewing cases concerning gender.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Provides, in the California Constitution's Equal Protection
Clause, that:
a) "A person may not be deprived of life, liberty, or
property without due process of law or denied equal
protection of the laws"; and
b) "A citizen or class of citizens may not be granted
privileges or immunities not granted on the same terms to
all citizens."
2)Provides that a "person may not be disqualified from entering
or pursuing a business, profession, vocation, or employment
because of sex, race, creed, color, or national or ethnic
origin."
3)Provides that the "state shall not discriminate against, or
grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on
the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin
in the operation of public employment, public education, or
public contracting." However, nothing in this provision
"shall be interpreted as prohibiting bona fide qualifications
based on sex which are reasonably necessary to the normal
operation of public employment, public education, or public
contracting."
4)Provides that "All people . . . have inalienable rights.
Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty,
acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing
and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy."
5)Provides, in the Unruh Civil Rights Act, that all persons are
free and equal, and no matter what their sex, race, color,
religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, medical
condition, genetic information, marital status, or sexual
orientation are entitled to the full and equal accommodations,
advantages, facilities, privileges, or services in all
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business establishments of every kind whatsoever.
6)Provides, pursuant to the Fair Employment and Housing Act,
that it is an unlawful employment practice for an employer,
because of the race, religious creed, color, national origin,
ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical
condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender,
gender identity, gender expression, age, or sexual orientation
of any person, to refuse to hire or employ that person or to
refuse to select that person for a training program leading to
employment, or to bar or discharge that person from employment
or from a training program leading to employment, or to
discriminate against that person in compensation or in terms,
conditions, or privileges of employment.
7)Provides that no business establishment may discriminate
against a person because of the person's gender with respect
to the price charged for services.
FISCAL EFFECT : None
COMMENTS : While 22 state constitutions specifically protect
against discrimination on the basis of gender, the U.S.
Constitution does not. This resolution urges the adoption of
just such a measure at the federal level. In support, the
author writes:
The intention of AJR 18 is to encourage the 113th
United States Congress to pass the Equal Rights
Amendment. Currently, there is no legal remedy
against sex discrimination for both men and women.
The ERA would make "sex" a suspect classification to
ensure that equality of rights under the law shall not
be denied or abridged by the United States or by any
state on account of sex.
The federal Equal Rights Amendment was initially introduced in
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1923. It finally passed Congress in 1972 and was ratified by 35
states (including California), three short of the three-fourths
needed for it to become part of the U.S. Constitution. It has
been introduced in every session of Congress since 1983. This
session, the ERA has been introduced as Senate Joint Resolution
10. The ERA resolution was introduced in the U.S. Senate on
March 5, 2013, by Senator Bob Menendez (N.J.). It has 12
cosponsors and proposes to amend the U.S. Constitution as
follows:
Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied
or abridged by the United States or by any State on
account of sex. The Congress shall have the power to
enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of
this article.
By its own terms, the resolution will take effect two years
after ratification.
Equality provisions protecting citizens from gender-based
discrimination can be found in 22 states, though not all are as
broad or as non-discriminatory as the proposed federal ERA. Of
the states that have enacted some version of an ERA, most
ratified the 1972 federal ERA, but a few, including Florida and
Louisiana, did not.
Analysis Prepared by : Leora Gershenzon / JUD. / (916)
319-2334
FN: 0000676