Sheila Jackson Lee: “I thank all of the women of America. I thank the sponsor of this bill. I thank the chairman of the Judiciary Committee…”

“I thank all of the women of America. I thank the sponsor of this bill. I thank the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and the ranking member for being on the floor. I thank him. I ask the question: Does anybody see the sense of women not being in the most powerful document of laws and power of the American people? Let us be reminded of the words of Abigail Adams: ``I long to hear that you have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws''--which she is saying to her husband--``which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands.'' I rise enthusiastically to support H.J. Res. 79 and to say to my colleagues there is no constitutional prohibition for passing this. We are grandly involved because this is the 1972 passage by the State of Texas of the equal rights amendment. And here, in 1977, Betty Friedan and Bella Abzug were in Houston at the 1977 National Women's Conference that our predecessor, Barbara Jordan, was at. Let us pass H.J. Res. 79, because, as Abigail Adams said, let's remember the ladies. Madam Speaker, as a senior member of the Committee on the Judiciary and an original cosponsor, I rise in strong and enthusiastic support of H.J. Res.…”