The push to amend Maine’s constitution to prohibit sex-based discrimination suffered a potential setback in the Legislature on Wednesday.
The Maine House voted 80-57 to give voters a chance to decide whether to amend the constitution to explicitly prohibit the state or other political subdivisions from abridging the rights of a person based on their sex. But the margin wasn’t enough because proposed constitutional amendments require two-thirds support in both the House and Senate.
Moments earlier, Rep. Lois Reckitt, D-South Portland, told her House colleagues that the first time she entered the Maine State House was in 1973 when she joined other activists lobbying lawmakers to support an Equal Rights Amendment. Nearly 50 years later, the 77-year-old lawmaker once again pressed lawmakers – this time, her colleagues – a stood before her House colleagues on Wednesday to press once again to enshrine protections for women in the state Constitution.
“It is time to ensure Maine voters are given the choice to rise in support of equality for women and men,” Reckitt said. “Pass LD 344 and let the people speak.”
With a federal equal rights amendment still in limbo, supporters have been pushing once again for a state-level amendment in Maine. But numerous Republican lawmakers, most of them women, called the measure redundant and unnecessary. They said society has advanced in recent decades to the point where women can now be as successful in business or politics as men, as evidenced by the more than 60 female members of the Maine House alone.
Opponents also warned of higher insurance rates and of violations of religious freedom if the state is allowed to dictate social policies to churches. But Rep. Abigail Griffin of Levant also ascribed other political motivations to the bill's backers.
"The ERA is being used to enshrine taxpayer-funded abortion in law for the day when the public realizes that their tax money is paying for abortion,” Griffin said. “It is not about women’s rights any longer."
Bangor Rep. Amy Roeder, a Democrat, agreed that women have made great strides in recent decades. But she also warned those changes could be reversed.
"The only right of equality afforded to women in the U.S. Constitution is the right to vote,” Roeder said. “So I encourage you to think about the generations coming forward and whether or not we want to fight this over and over again, or if we can settle it once and for all, that women deserve equal treatment."
The bill could come up again but supporters would need to pick up about 20 more votes in the House alone.
