Agenda - 11-15-2016 - 4-a - Resolution in Support of the Equal Rights Amendment

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3 RES-2016-070 ORANGE COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT WHEREAS, Orange County forthrightly supports equal rights for all residents of Orange County; and WHEREAS, women continue to confront a lack of political parity, workplace discrimination, health care inequities, disparate rates of poverty, rape and domestic violence assaults; and WHEREAS, the United States Constitution fails to guarantee explicitly that all rights that it purports to protect are held equally by all residents without regard to sex; and WHEREAS, the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment never has been interpreted to guarantee equal rights for women; and WHEREAS, the Equal Rights Amendment [ERA] was drafted to help correct systemic discrimination based on sex, i.e., by situating sex as a suspect category invoking strict judicial scrutiny, as with race, national origin and religion; and WHEREAS, the ERA was passed by Congress in 1972 and ratified by 35 of the 38 states necessary to put it into the Constitution, yet was assumed to have expired in 1982; and WHEREAS, Congress can alter time limits in the proposing clauses of amendments, and the deadline for the ERA appeared only in the preamble as opposed to the actual legislation; and WHEREAS, Senator Floyd B. McKissick, Jr. and Representative Carla Cunningham introduced ERA ratification bills in the NC General Assembly in the 2015 long session, with Senator Mike Woodard co-sponsoring the Senate bill and Representative Henry M. Michaux co-sponsoring the House bill; and WHEREAS, these legislators have indicated that they will introduce similar bills in 2017; and WHEREAS, US Representative David Price, Representative Alma Adams, and Representative G.K. Butterfield co-sponsored bills in the 114th Congress to adopt an ERA, and to lift the time limits on states for ratifying the ERA; NOW THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Orange County Board of County Commissioners calls on the US Congress to pass into law a bill to adopt an Equal Rights Amendment, or to remove the time limit for ratification of the ERA so that ratification shall be achieved upon the affirmative vote of 38 states, of which 35 already have ratified; and BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Orange County Board of County Commissioners calls on the NC General Assembly to pass into law a bill to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment to the United States Constitution as proposed by Congress on March 22, 1972. This the 15th day of November 2016.