Why conservatives oppose D.C. vote, ERA
By Richard G. Zimmerman
Plain Dealer bureau
WASHINGTON A Washington hostess, sensing the conversation around her candlelit dinner table was lagging, recently exclaimed, "Well, should we talk about the ERA or D.C. voting rights?"
No other domestic issues in recent years have so cleanly split conservatives and liberals in this city as have the two proposed constitutional amendments Congress has sent to state legislatures for ratification or rejection:
The Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which would constitutionally prohibit all discrimination based on sex, and,
The District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment, which would give to the 750,000 residents of the nation's capital two senators and at least one congressman. The District is now represented only in the House of Representatives by a single, non-voting delegate, even though the population of the district exceeds that of ten states.
Last month a conglomerate of conservative organizations met in Washington under the banner of the American Political Action Conference and spent a good deal of time talking about how to beat both ERA and D.C. voting rights. These united forces of conservativism may well see their goal fulfilled.
The ERA appears stalled three states short of the 38 need to ratify and five of those state legislatures have attempted to withdraw ratification resolutions passed at earlier sessions. (The constitutionality of one legislature trying to rescind the action of an earlier legislature no doubt will be appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court should ERA finally win approval in 38 states.)
The D.C. voting rights amendment has been approved by only three states (Ohio was second) and prospects for passage in the immediate future appear good in only three other states. The amendment has been turned down by one house in at least six states, including Maryland, the District's neighbor. Passage by the District's other neighbor, conservative Virginia, seems hopeless.
In addition, conservative forces have unveiled a new "quick kill" strategy calling for state legislatures opposed to D.C. Voting Rights not only to withhold ratification, but to pass a formal resolution of disapproval. The conservatives believe if only 13 states pass such negative resolutions it will be impossible to ever win the approval of 38 states.
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(As in the ERA case, the question of one legislature attempting to bind a future legislature on D.C. Voting Rights probably will have to be decided by the courts.)
Arguments over both proposed amendments have become increasingly emotional and shrill. The ERA has pitted the minions of the feminist movement against such well-known thunderers of the right as Phyllis Schlafly. Those supporting the D.C. Voting Rights proposal have charged that much of the opposition is racist in character. Most opposition comes from the South and Southwest and Washington is about 70% black.
The basic arguments of those supporting the two amendments are quite similar and simple: both would implement basic constitutional rights now being denied to two groups of American citizens, women and D.C. residents.
The arguments of the opponents are a bit more complicated. So The Plain Dealer turned to Rep. John M. Ashbrook, R-17, Johnstown, for a clarification of the conservatives' opposition to the two amendments it has editorially endorsed.
'Ohio's Ashbrook remains one of the most articulate spokesmen for the right wing of the Republican Party. A founder of the American Conservative Union and former national presi-
dent of the Young Republicans, Ashbrook prides himself with never having spent a weekend in Washington during 18 years in Congress.
An edited version of the PD's interview with Ashbrook follows:
QUESTION: Isn't conservative opposition to D.C. Voting Rights purely a practical, political one in that representatives from D.C. are likely to be very liberal and urban?
ANSWER: It's a lot of things. I think conservatives are strict constructionists. We still believe that (the framers of the Constitution) created a federal city, not located in any state, and it ought to continue as a federal city. D.C. doesn't have any attributes of a state. It's a city, and to give it two senators diminishes the Senate. I think we would feel the same if you would elect Jesse Helmes and Dick Lugar (two conservative Republican senators) out of the district.
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Q: You argue Washington was created as a federal city originally 200 years ago. Is this to say that any change in its status would be unconstitutional? How can an amendment to the Constitution be unconstitutional? A lot of the original document has been altered or downright voided over 200 years' time by amendments.
A: I've never heard the argument that (the D.C. amendment) would be unconstitutional. If the people want to endorse that amendment through their state legislatures, I assume it would be constitutional.
Q: Okay, then, if it wouldn't be unconstitutional, let's talk about the basic fairness of it all. Just because I opted to live within a mile of the Capitol. building and not clog up commuter freeways every morning, is it fair that I have no voice at all in the Senate and only a nonvoting voice in the House?
A: I assume you're a resident of another state, Ohio, for voting purposes.
Q: Well, I'm not, although a lot of transplants are. I could, go through that ruse and use my mother's or brother's address in Ohio. But I pay taxes here in D.C. and think I should vote here, not Ohio. Besides, native D.C. residents don't even have the option to use such a ruse.
A: Well, I guess you opted to live here and you get all the pluses and minuses like we all do. Supposedly you have us all (in Congress) representing you. People are represented in different ways. You're technically represented by all Congress and by the Council of the District of Columbia. You can vote for presidential candidates. So I'd say your franchise has not been diminished all that much.
Q: Would you vote to give D.C.'s lone delegate a vote in the House?
A: I don't think you'd do great harm to either our representative system or the Constitution by putting a voting member in the House from the district. But to upset the whole idea of the Senate to make a city the size of Columbus eligible for two senators doesn't make
sense.
Q: How much opposition to the D.C. amendment is based on race issues?
A: Turning that around, is the push for the D.C. amendment more racial than the opposition? I don't believe it would be a political issue if the District were white. I think the push in favor of it is basically racial, but I don't think the opposition is rooted in basically racial terms.
Q: On to ERA: aren't some of the opposition arguments pretty absurd? Like its passage
would lead to the legalization of homosexual marriages and unisex toilets?
A: I've probably been to 50 ERA forums over the year and never heard those arguments. Although I'm sure somebody, somewhere sometime has made them. But some arguments made 10 years ago don't seem so ridiculous today. I can remember when proponents laughed about the draft issue. I don't hear anyone laughing about that now.
Q: If the draft is reenacted, is there any reason women shouldn't be drafted?
A: If you believe in complete equality, there should be a draft for women. (But) as the father of three daughters I certainly don't want my daughters in combat. But I say if there's an ERA amendment, I would vote for a draft for
women.
Q: Aside from combat duty, why shouldn't women be eligible for the draft? The job I had in the Air Force could have been done by a probably better.
woman
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A: Well, I guess we're all captive of our historic outlook. Now I don't look upon a woman as a person who belongs in the home. But I don't look upon them as doing the hardest necessary work. Just as a matter of personal
belief, which is the way we often vote, I would not vote for the draft for women (without an ERA amendment).
Q: But aren't there several court cases that have gone against women that would have gone the other way if there had been an ERA? Like one out of Pennsylvania where a girl was denied admission to a prestigious, very academic all male high school?
A: I don't think ERA would change that. We've been through a number of cases where a person can set aside money for deserving young women or for deserving young men. I guess you start to get into the question of boys' choirs versus girls' choirs, girl scouts and boy scouts. A certain number of people seem to believe we should have no freedom of choice or association.