Fla. deals ERA a critical blow

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Just two weeks ago 21 senators

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a majority were pledged to vote yes on the ERA: Legislators who have been here for 20 years, though, concede it is the most emotional issue they have ever had to deal with.

The reasons for its defeat are many including arguments that the amendment legalized homosexual marriages, unisex bathrooms, and preempted state rights on many laws governing a family. Those allegations were labeled "lies" and "myths" by ERA proponents, but they were effective.

But the major reason was a political power play.

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This southern Senate, heavy with conservative Democrats, is controlled by three men president, Lew Brantley, a sheet metal contractor; past president and dean of the Senate Dempsey Barron, a lawyer and rancher; and Tom Gallen, chairman of the Rules Committee and a lawyer.

All have long opposed the ERA and proponents contend their arm-twisting" and "backroom deals" are reasons for the sudden switch in key votes.

Gallen himself made no bones about his strategy. The only reason the bill ever got out of his com. mittee was that he knew there

were enough votes to defeat it in the Senate and that "we could kill it better on the floor."

Barron, sometimes known as "King Barron," who has long been at odds with Gov. Reuben Askew, grinned as he said he saw the vote as a victory against the governor

who in the final hours heavily urged legislators to vote for the bill. Barron grinned even more when he said he had turned down the opportunity to talk to President Carter, who called to lobby for the bill. "It would be a waste of the President's time," he said.

One ERA proponent, Sen. Robert Graham, said, “It's unfortunate that something of such fundamental importance as the ERA got caught up in almost undergraduate jealousy."

Mark Siegel, Carter's White House aide pushing for ERA passage, said they're playing “absolute hard ball: If you don't vote right I'll take away your chairmanship.'

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Tuesday, women for and against the amendment stalked the corridors pushing buttons and pamphlets at anyone. Anti-ERA women wheeled infants through the halls with red and white Stop ERA buttons pinned to their diapers. The women-themselves wore buttons which said, "There is a difference" and showed a little boy and little girl pulling down their underpants.