Heidi Li's Potpourri

In 1984, a great Democrat used the opportunity to address the Party and the Country about the Equal Rights Amendment

Today we have a Democratic President who is not a progressive, who is not, in my opinion, a liberal. He has expressed his admiration for Ronald Reagan. Thinking about our current president made me nostalgic for a time when a major Democratic Party player refused to play at wasteful bipartisan brinksmanship or speak of a fuzzy post-partisan era. Mario Cuomo spoke of unity, spoke of bringing the party together - but not just for the sake of collapsing the country into one politically mediocre middlism. He believed that Democratic unity - liberal unity - was what would bring our country prosperity and justice.

When Mario Cuomo spoke we on the left who did not have his platform knew we could outright criticize military adventures and trickle-down economic theories; we could demand that we take care of the old and the less well-abled; we could care about all races and orientations; and and treat women equally under our constitution. The 1980s were a lousy time for those of us on the left as they were so much the Reagan years. But at least we had leaders like Mario Cuomo who would speak out, publicly and courageously in the name of all these things, but even - oh my - the E.R.A.

Listen to Cuomo's speech here. My paraphrasing or even a reading of the text does not do it justice. Listen to it if you can.

Pay special attention to this passage:

"We speak -- We speak for women who are indignant that this nation refuses to etch into its governmental commandments the simple rule "thou shalt not sin against equality," a rule so simple [applause, chanting] --I was going to say, and I perhaps dare not but I will. It's a commandment so simple it can be spelled in three letters: E.R.A." [chanting, chanting]

It is over 20 years since Mario Cuomo dared to spell it out in three letters: E.R.A  -- while a convention hall full of Democratic delegates roared those letters back at him.

Can you imagine now a Democratic Party shining on the hill introducing the Equal Rights Amendment or fighting for the three state strategy or fighting, state by state - including all those supposedly newly blue ones - for its passage?

I confess I cannot imagine today's Democratic Party doing this. But may I be wrong. May the Democratic party wake up from its mediocre middlism and go to the mat for the majority, for the 51 percent of Americans who are not guaranteed the highest protection of their equality under the law.

E...R...A.....E...R...A......E...R...A.....E...R...A.

ERA action in Florida

From a friend:

Subject: Special ERA Action Alert - Florida, Feb. 20

Efforts to ratify the ERA in Florida are at a boiling point and they can use our help.  Sandy Oestreich, Founder/President, Equal Rights Alliance, Inc., asks for the following assistance from Fthe ERA is heard by the Florida legislature:

On this FRIDAY, Feb. 20:  Call Speaker Cretul's Gainesville office - (352) 955-6407 (or alt. -- (352) 625-6407). Let him hear the phones RINGING OFF THE HOOK! Leave the message, "PLEASE HOLD ERA HEARINGS EARLY MARCH!"

Also, keep the postcards coming. Write now to: Rep. Larry Cretul, 1911 SW 34th St, Gainesville, FL 32608. And again! Urge him to "HOLD HEARINGS ON THE HCR 8003 asap."

Public works, women-owned businesses, 51 per cent

Even though I have not the foggiest idea how President-elect Obama plans to pay for it (no details have been released by the President-elect), he is proposing a major public works program to help ease the open-ended economic pain the country faces.

Assuming an Obama administration can get such a program up and running, how hard will it work to make sure that women-owned businesses or companies with majority of women employees get their fair share of the business created. Fair share is, to my mind, 51 percent of the contracts, regardless of the number of women-owned business or women workers in the relevant fields. This is because I am committed to a very simple idea: women should be represented in every aspect of economic and political life in proportion to their percentage of our population, 51 per cent. I assure you that in today's economy if a major government jobs program hired women-owned and businesses with a majority of women employees, there would be plenty of women-owned businesses and women workers to fill the jobs.

One way President-elect Obama could aid the supply-side would be to propose serious changes to the way the Small Business Association treats women-owned businesses:

"Women-run companies represent about 30 percent of all privately held firms nationally, but in 2006, the latest year for which data is available, they made up just 3.4 percent of government contracts, according to various surveys.

"The battle to boost that percentage has been progressing for several years.

"In 1994, Congress set a goal of awarding at least 5 percent of all federal small-business contracts to women-run companies, and six years later lawmakers directed the SBA to create a program to fulfill that goal.

In 2004, the U.S. Women's Chamber of Commerce sued the SBA for its failure to study underrepresented industries and publish the regulations necessary to implement the set-aside program. The D.C. Circuit Court ruled that the federal government was unreasonably delaying enactment.

"The SBA said that it did attempt a timely implementation. However, the agency says such an undertaking was a 'complex and controversial responsibility' because gender-based preference programs are subject to intense constitutional scrutiny."

That alleged "intense constitutional scrutiny" roadblock could be redressed by the Obama administration adopting a firm commitment to the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. With the passage of the ERA, legislation designed to aid women's economic empowerment would qualify for the lowest level of constitutional review, meaning that such legislation would more readily be regarded as constitutionally permissible.

John F. Kennedy really should be a lesson for President-elect Obama

The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated.

-John F. Kennedy, 1963 Civil Rights Address

John F. Kennedy really should be a lesson for President-elect Obama.

Kennedy did not arrive in office with a track record of support for black Americans' social and civic equality. In fact, he voted against the first Civil Rights Act introduced in modern times, the Civil Rights Act of 1957, introduced by President Eisenhower, a bill that was a predecessor to the more sweeping Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965. But in 1963, after events made it clear that the nation faced serious social unrest and the federal government serious opposition to its Constitutional authority, Kennedy delivered his famous address on Civil Rights, breaking with his "prior and lukewarm position on civil rights." It is impossible to know whether JFK would have evolved into a wholehearted supporter of black civil rights or whether he would have been driven less by a moral imperative and more by political considerations. But it does not matter. A President should receive credit for her or his good acts, regardless of her or his intentions. Whether driven by political pragmatism or a moral change of heart, President Kennedy eventually showed leadership on the question of black civil rights.

People I respect consider President-elect Obama to be both extremely savvy and intelligent. President-elect Obama makes much of his interest in learning from the history of past presidential administrations.

President-elect Obama ought to seize a historic opportunity he really does have. Rather than be seen as grudgingly coming around to a recognition of the need to address the interests of women in our society, he could be seen as the president who tackled this issue head on, in front of the curve. I don't care whether he does this out of political savvy or a pure commitment to gender equity or both.

Appointing Senator Clinton Secretary of State (should that come to pass) has relatively little to do with what I am talking about. Bill Clinton broke the gender barrier with regard to that position when he appointed Madeline Albright to it in 1997. FDR broke the gender barrier with regard to women heading Cabinent departments back in 1933 with the appointment of Frances Perkins as Secretary of Labor.

Now, a Cabinet whose members reflected the proportion of women in the country (so that just over half the Cabinet heads would be women) would go beyond measures like these. But I do not see President-elect Obama moving toward that goal. But that doesn't mean there is a shortage of measures Mr. Obama could take if he wanted to be ahead of the curve on gender equity. A non-exhaustive list:

• appoint a gold-ribbon Presidential Commission on Women, charged specifically with recommending legislation the President could send to Congress that would work the same sort of dramatic changes for women that the Civil Rights Acts of the twentieth centure worked for black Americans

• seriously consider sending for passage by Congress the Equal Rights Amendment, which would serve to guarantee to women the same Constitutional protection against gender discrimination that the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments have - admittedly over a long time - come to protect black Americans from racial discrimination

• use his office as a bully pulpit to acknowledge and condemn specific acts of misogyny and sexism, and to consistently and continually object to the attitudes reflected by these acts

• get behind the National Women's History Museum, making sure it gets a permanent and prominent home in Washington, D.C.

• commit to making every reasonable effort to transform the Supreme Court so that its composition reflects the proportion of women to men in this country

I could continue this list. But note that almost none of the items on it commit President-elect Obama to additional spending or would cut against measures aimed at addressing other problems we all agree need work - worldwide terrorism, economic crisis, etc.

Just as Lyndon Johnson, a white president, picked up the banner of black civil rights even as he contended with the Vietnam War, Barack Obama, could be a male president who picks up the banner of women's rights.

Women's rights are human rights. Practically speaking, probably nobody will fight as hard for them as women themselves. But there's no reason in the world that men, particularly one of the most powerful men in the world, the incoming President of the United States of America should not put human rights, and therefore women's rights, at the very top of his agenda.

Seven to one: not so promising

 So far the Obama administration has announced eight high level appointments to the executive branch (John Podesta, serving as co-chair of the transition team says he will not hold a position in the new administration). Of these seven are men and one is a woman. President-elect Obama has held a meeting with John McCain, and the two announced a hope "to work together to together in the days and months ahead on critical challenges like solving our financial crisis, creating a new energy economy, and protecting our nation's security."

I certainly agree that these issues are pressing. But a disturbing pattern is emerging. Neither by virtue of his appointments nor his statements is President-elect Obama indicating that he is taking heed of the concerns of millions of people that this election cycle exposed just how much misogyny and sexism pervades this country. And putting that issue on the back burner is not warranted just because there are other important issues facing the country.

Other presidents, including at least one President-elect Obama has taken as a role model, have neglected to attend to the civil rights of certain groups claiming that other issues take priority. John F. Kennedy, for example, largely ignored the issue of black civil rights for the first two years of his administration, preferring to focus on the problems of the Cold War. What finally forced President Kennedy's hand was the increasing intensity of the nonviolent but direct actions led Martin Luther King Jr. and his compatriots. Although black Americans had been demanding full civil and social equality since at least the end of World War II and King's movement had begun in the 1950s, it was not until 1963, after outbreaks of serious violence by officials against nonviolent protestors, that President Kennedy gave an address on the issue of black civil rights and introduced legislation that was enacted after his death, the Civil Rights Act of 1964. (source)

JImagine if President-elect Obama were to learn from President Kennedy's strategy of delay by showing right now an immediate responsiveness to an issue that may not have figured much in his campaign promises but figures large in the social consciousness. Imagine if his first eight appointments had been seven women and one man. What a powerful message that would have sent.

I have discussed the important of the petition drive being sponsored by WomenCount, seeking the appointment of a Presidential Commission on Women.

From WomenCount:

SOMETIMES THERE IS A WATERSHED MOMENT IN HISTORY WHEN IT BECOMES CLEAR THAT THINGS MUST CHANGE AND LEADERS MUST ACT. THAT MOMENT IS NOW FOR THE WOMEN OF THIS COUNTRY.

THE LESSONS OF THIS CAMPAIGN WERE ABUNDANT:

• As the economy became the single most critical issue in the election, the role that women play in our economic structure has never been clearer. Women are the backbone of the nation’s workforce and control 70 percent of its buying power.

• The candidacies of Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin, while inspiring women and girls around the country to imagine what can be, exposed extreme gender bias in the media and throughout our culture.

• Women, who make up 56 percent of the voting population, were targeted as never before as the critical bloc that would determine the outcome of the election.

Interestingly, the Commission sought by WomenCount is modeled after one created by President Kennedy in 1961. Below is a partial outline of the proposed Commission; the full version appears here.

• The 2008 election has been historic.  Women’s roles in the election, as candidates for president and vice president and as voters, have never been greater. In our 232-year history, Hillary Clinton is the first woman to have ever won statewide in a presidential primary and has won more votes in a presidential primary than any other candidate.  Sarah Palin is only the second woman ever nominated as a vice presidential candidate.
• This election has exposed extreme gender bias in the media, in politics, and throughout our culture.  This has demonstrated that although women in the United States have come a long way since the last Presidential Commission on the Status of Women in 1961, we still have far to go.
•  The current economic crisis highlights the increasing impact on single parents (one income households – mostly women), working couples (almost a necessity in lower, middle and upper middle income households), and minimum wage workers (mostly women).
• Women have been at the forefront of this campaign and our political discourse. WomenCount is committed to making sure that once this election is over, women stay there.
• We believe that now is the time for our country to have a national conversation to address the issues and discriminatory attitudes that women face, and to ensure a better future with respect and full human rights extended to all women.

[...]

•  There are hundreds, if not thousands, of studies published, books written, and organizations established that are directed at issues and barriers that women face in their lives, with numerous recommendations to improve the lives of women in our nation.
•  We need a vehicle to discuss and implement all of these thoughts, ideas and recommendations at the national level. (emphasis added)
•  We need to bring together the efforts of the many organizations devoted to women’s issues and causes, and create a common movement to benefit the future of all women.
•  We believe that it is time for a Presidential Commission on Women to serve as that vehicle.
•   A new generation can be positively influenced by the actions of such a Commission.
  

[...]

•     The commission will be composed of a bipartisan, diverse group of experts, policymakers, opinion leaders, members of the media, corporate leaders, and women of all walks of life who represent mainstream issues.
•     The commission members will address the overall attitudes about women in this country, as well as specific issues.
•     The commission will develop the substance and scope of its work.
•     The commission will hold hearings and issue a list of recommendations, and will also ensure that its recommendations are carried out.

My own view is that passage of the Equal Rights Amendment would be the most effective step to ensuring gender equality in this country. I might be wrong but the entire point of a Presidential Commission on Women would be to assess this issue, among others, and make recommendations to the President.

Thousands of women are willing to participate in nonviolent protest to draw attention to women's issues. As the black American civil rights movement taught us, however, even nonviolent protest can provoke brutality and backlash. Making women's wellbeing and equality an immediate cornerstone of the new administration could save resources, bloodshed, and even lives. Surely doing that is of signal importance to our country. Sign the petition.

The midnight hour - November 5, 2008

(source for image)

Senator Obama: Congratulations on your victory.  May you live up to the highest and best hopes of your most fervent supporters. May you make this country the better place you have said you want it to be.

Kay Hagan, Jeanne Shaheen: heartiest congratulations upon your respective elections to the United States Senate.

A number of Democratic women with terrific policy positions who were running for House seats have, unfortunately, lost their bids. It appears that Alice Kryzan (NY), Victoria Wulsin (OH), and Lisa Stender (NJ) are among these losers. At the time of this writing, it is less clear how women running in the western states will do.

Even if all women running for the Senate yesterday were to prevail, only one additional woman in the Senate, will be added at best (source). Best case scenario for the house, 5 additional women (source). Governors, no matter what, one fewer woman holding that position (source).

This is not good news for those still hoping to see a woman President any time soon.

Nevertheless, human rights advocates of both genders will now be working to win the fight for full political and economic recognition of women, both in the U.S. and abroad. 

President-Elect Obama: What will you be doing to increase representation by women in elected office? Will you support a woman who clearly supports such increased representation to head the DNC? Will you support Senator Clinton for Senate Majority Leader? Will you support a change to the Democratic Party rules that makes for winner-take-all primaries and eliminates caucuses? Will you and Senator Biden support women to fill your Senate seats? Will you create a Presidential Commission on Women?  

Will you announce that you will send Congress the Equal Rights Amendment for passage during your first hundred days? Will you be sending Congress a new version of the Lily Ledbetter law and other legislation aimed at eliminating the wage gap between men and women? Will you go on record as opposing the creeping restrictions on women's access to abortion that the Supreme Court's post-Roe jurisprudence allows?

Will you speak out against regimes around the world that deny women the right to the ballot, that force women as a matter of law to wear required garb?

Having won the Presidency, will you, Senator Obama, prove that you are going to join us in the greatest civil rights battle of our time, the fight for full political and economic recognition of women both in the U.S. and abroad?

The women of America, Mr. Obama, are waiting. The women of the world are watching.

The first group in the U.S. to wage a nonviolent civil disobedience campaign

Many others who believe, as I do, that this election season has revealed how far women have to go in the fight for full civil and political equality, have noted the work of Alice Paul, the author the Equal Rights Amendment, and a prominent force in the fight for women's suffrage. What many Americans do not realize is what a long, hard fight that was nor how original and intelligent Paul's tactics were. An extended excerpt from one source of information about Paul's life and times (emphases added):

Alice [Paul] and Lucy [Burns] approached the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), having decided to join forces toward a constitutional amendment by directly lobbying congressmen. They were allowed to take over the NAWSA Congressional Committee in Washington, D.C., but they had no office, no budget and few supporters. Alice was only 26 years old.

Drawing on her experiences in England, Alice organized the largest parade ever seen -- a spectacle unparalleled in the nation's political capitol -- on March 3, 1913, the eve of President Woodrow Wilson’s inauguration. About 8,000 college, professional, middle- and working-class women dressed in white suffragist costumes marched in units with banners and floats down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House. The goal was to gather at the Daughters of the American Revolution's Constitution Hall. The crowd was estimated at half a million people, with many verbally harassing the marchers while police stood by. Troops finally had to be called to restore order and help the suffragists get to their destination -- it took six hours.

The parade generated more publicity than Alice could have hoped for. Newspapers carried articles for weeks, with politicians demanding investigations into police practices in Washington, and commentaries on the bystanders. The publicity opened the door for the Congressional Committee to lobby congressmen, and the president. On March 17, Alice and other suffragists met with President Wilson, who appeared mildly interested but feigned ignorance and said the time was not right yet. They met two more times that month. She organized another demonstration on April 7, opening day of the new Congress. Also in April, Alice established the Congressional Union for Woman Suffrage (CUWS), sanctioned by NAWSA and dedicated to achieving the federal amendment. By June, the Senate Committee on Women's Suffrage reported favorably on the amendment and senators prepared to debate the issue for the first time since 1887.

....

In 1915, Alice founded the Woman's Party for women in western states who had the vote already. Then in late 1916, the CUWS and the Woman’s Party merged into the National Woman’s Party (NWP), under Alice's leadership. She called a halt to any more pleading for the right to vote -- instead, she mounted an even more militaristic political campaign demanding passage of the women's suffrage amendment, which she named the Susan B. Anthony Amendment.

At that point, the women's suffrage fight had already been going on for almost 70 years -- starting in 1848 with a Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. The first women's suffrage amendment was presented to Congress in 1878, and reintroduced every year for 40 years, but was never voted on. By 1917, however, support had grown and women were already voting in 12 western states. And in 1916, Jeanette Rankin of Montana was the first woman elected to Congress. But a national suffrage amendment was still no closer to passing.

The NWP staged more demonstrations, parades, mass meetings, picketing, suffrage watch fires, hunger strikes, press communications, and lobbying. It published a stylish Suffragist weekly paper, organizing women in the west who could vote. Their tactic was to hold the party in power (the Democrats) responsible for failure to pass the amendment -- and they urged women who could to vote against Democrats. NAWSA [a rival suffragist group] leaders condemned the policy, saying pro-suffrage politicians were in both parties. Suffragists released from prison, in prison uniforms, rode a "Prison Special" train, speaking throughout the country. Other women held automobile petition drives across the country.

Beginning January 10, 1917, the NWP began picketing the White House -- the first group in the U.S. to wage a nonviolent civil disobedience campaign. They became known as the Silent Sentinels, standing silently by the gates, carrying purple, white and gold banners saying "Mr. President, what will you do for suffrage?" and "Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty?" The first day, 12 NWP members marched in a slow, square movement so passers-by could see the banners. Over the next 18 months, more than 1,000 women picketed, including Alice, day and night, winter and summer, every day except Sunday.

At first they were politely ignored, but then World War I began on April 6 and the picketers' signs became more pointed -- often using the president's quotes against him. One banner read: "Democracy Should Begin at Home." They asked, how could he fight to help disenfranchised people when he had disenfranchised people at home? They became an embarrassment.

Spectators began assaulting the women verbally and physically -- while the police did nothing to protect them. Then in June, the police began arresting the picketers on charges of "obstructing traffic." First the charges were dropped, then the women were sentenced to a few days' jail terms. But the suffragists kept picketing, and the jail terms grew longer. Finally, to try to break their spirit, the police arrested Alice on October 20, 1917, and she was sentenced to seven months in prison. The banner she carried that day said:

    "THE TIME HAS COME TO CONQUER OR SUBMIT, FOR US THERE CAN BE BUT ONE CHOICE. WE HAVE MADE IT." (President Wilson's words)

Alice was placed in solitary confinement for two weeks and immediately began a hunger strike. Unable to walk on her release from there, she was taken to the prison hospital. Others joined the hunger strike. "It was the strongest weapon left with which to continue ... our battle ...," she later said. Then the prison officials put Alice in the "psychopathic" ward, hoping to discredit her as insane. They deprived her of sleep -- she had an electric light, directed at her face, turned on briefly every hour, every night. And they continually threatened to transfer her to St. Elizabeth's Hospital, a notorious asylum in Washington, D.C., as suffering a "mania of persecution." But she still refused to eat. During the last week of her 22-day hunger strike, the doctors brutally forced a tube into her nose and down her throat, pouring liquids into her stomach, three times a day for three weeks. Despite the pain and illness this caused, Alice refused to end the hunger strike.....

I do not know who will win the election this Tuesday. But I know that regardless of who prevails, the time to pick up the banner of Alice Paul has come again. The fight for women's equality has just begun.

The Equal Rights Amendment and the First Hundred Days

A proposal for the candidate who would like to win the upcoming Presidential election: tell us now that you will, within the first hundred days of your administration, send Congress the Equal Rights Amendment for passage and announce that you will use the bully pulpit of the presidency as well as the president's abilities to work with governors and state legislatures to ensure ratification.

The text of the Equal Rights Amendment

• Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.
• Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
• Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

For more information about the history, status, and ongoing need for the Equal Rights Amendment go here.

In the 110th Congress, The Senate version of the bill was introduced by Mr. KENNEDY (for himself, Mr. KERRY, Mrs. BOXER, Mr. HARKIN, Mr. LAUTENBERG, Mr. DODD, Mr. LIEBERMAN, Mrs. FEINSTEIN, Ms. MIKULSKI, Mr. BROWN, Mr. DURBIN, Mr. SCHUMER, Ms. CANTWELL, Mr. BIDEN, Mr. LEVIN, Mr. MENENDEZ, Mrs. MURRAY, Mrs. CLINTON, Mr. FEINGOLD, Ms. STABENOW, and Mr. WHITEHOUSE). The Senate bill eventually had a total of 24 co-sponsors including Senator Barack Obama.

Since both Senator Obama and Senator Biden co-sponsored the Senate version of the bill to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, they are the more likely, by far, of the president/vice-president tickets to announce that passage of the Equal Rights Amendment will be a top priority of their administration should they be elected.

Since they both already support the Equal Rights Amendment, this would be a relatively minor step for them to take.

Since millions of Democrats remain unsure about the seriousness of the Party's and it's ticket's commitment to full equality for women, it would seem to behoove Senator Obama and Senator Biden to use the final days of their campaign to announce that if elected, they will do everything within their power to fight for the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.