Democratic legislators, led by Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York and Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, have reintroduced legislation to
protect women in the workplace.
Their two-page bill is a reiteration of the Equal Rights Amendment, which passed both houses of Congress in 1972, but failed to become part of the U.S. Constitution. The move comes after the Supreme Court’s rejection of a massive class-action lawsuit against Wal-Mart on behalf of female employees alleging gender discrimination.
“The Wal-Mart case decided by the Supreme Court this week is a classic example of how far attitudes must still come,”
DailyCaller.com quotes Maloney as saying. “The facts of the case support the view that over a million women were systematically denied equal pay by the world’s largest employer.”
Conservative constitutional lawyer Phyllis Schlafly, a longtime opponent of the ERA, told the Caller that passage of the amendment would not affect cases like that dismissed against Wal-Mart.
“I do not believe that the ERA — if ratified — would do anything for the Wal-Mart case; there’s no discriminatory actions in the Wal-Mart case,” said Schlafly. “What they are after is attitude, and we don’t want our Constitution to tell us what our attitudes should be. It tells us what laws can and can’t do, and we don’t want to amend the Constitution to tell people attitudes they should have.”
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