Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, first I want to thank Congresswoman Watson Coleman for holding this special session and bringing attention to the Equal Rights Amendment. When I was born in 1963, we lived in a different world. It was legal to openly discriminate against hiring women; it was legal to discriminate against women in lending and credit; it was legal to pay women substantially less than men; and it was legal to fire a woman just for becoming pregnant. Fortunately, when I was born, things were beginning to change. Women were fighting for and gaining greater equality. Today, women are better protected from those forms of discrimination. We have made great strides, but we haven't yet been able to recognize our equality in the Constitution. There is nothing more sacred, nothing more important to America than our Constitution. I support the Equal Rights Amendment because I grew up in a changing world, but I want my daughter and the next generation to grow up in a changed world. I want my daughter to live in a country where her and every woman's equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. To illustrate why I believe we should and still can ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, I want to specifically speak about the history of the ERA in my home State of Florida.…”