Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank Representative Speier, Representative Maloney, and all of those who have been such warriors on this issue for such a long period of time. They are keeping the faith. This constitutional amendment was passed in 1972, to be specific, in the early part of 1972. I was a member of the Maryland State Senate in 1972, and I had the honor in the late spring of 1972, just months after the ERA had been passed, of voting to ratify that. Now, the previous speaker said in only 35 States. That is 70 percent of the States ratified that in a timely fashion. Timely in the sense that we set in a resolution, as the chairman pointed out, a date. Seventy percent of the States of this Nation. Now, it needed three more States. It has now received three more States. I have been an advocate for the equal rights amendment for essentially 4 decades, actually longer. I will be proud to vote for it today. Just a few months, as I said, after Congress adopted the ERA, Maryland voted for ratification. I thought that it was long overdue even then in 1972. Here we are some 48 years later, and it still is. Our Founders declared ``all men are created equal'' in their Declaration of Independence. Surely, no Founder, if they were writing that document today, would have said ``men'' meant white, property- owning men. Surely, they would not have written that. Surely, none of us would have supported that.…”