by Mikki Morrissette 05/21/2024
From WomensPress.com
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The Minnesota legislative session ended with a well-documented shouting match Sunday at midnight. One of the bills that remained on the table, without a Senate vote, was the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA); last year it was the House that did not act on the bill. Minnesota’s ERA activists have attempted to get equal rights codified into the state constitution for decades.
The original Senate bill wording in 2023 was to not discriminate on the basis of “race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, ancestry, or country of origin.”
The proposed amendment was to put on the 2024 election ballot the question: “Shall the Minnesota Constitution be amended to say that all persons shall be guaranteed equal rights under the laws of this state, and shall not be discriminated against on account of race, color, national origin, ancestry, disability, or sex, including pregnancy, gender, and sexual orientation?”
The House passed — at 4:30am on May 19 by a vote of 68-62 — the SF37 bill as amended by Rep. Kaohly Her (DFL–Saint Paul), who was the chief author of the House companion bill. It included new wording from the input of Gender Justice lawyers: “All persons shall be guaranteed equal rights under the laws of this state. The state shall not discriminate against any person in intent or effect on account of one or more of the following; race, color, national origin, ancestry, disability, or sex, including but not limited to: making and effectuating decisions about all matters relating to one’s own pregnancy or decision whether to become or remain pregnant; gender identity or gender expression; or sexual orientation.”
Rep. Walter Hudson (GOP–Albertville) rejected the House bill because he said it raised questions about hypothetical situations without clear rules about how to measure discrimination and disparate impact. “This is a bad bill … [It will erase] a lot of people from legal acknowledgement.” In a half-hour talk from the floor, Hudson said the diversity of Minnesota’s communities means it becomes unquantifiable to ascertain and thus reward “which subsection is getting a more raw deal?”
He said that injecting an expression of gender identity, and allowing for a redefinition of what a woman is, can “literally [allow for] whatever is in your head right now,” Hudson said, speculating that there are more than a dozen gender identities. “Which one is going to entitle me to reparation? … You are going to create an incentive in the state constitution for people to [make claims of discrimination], whether they believe it or not, so they can benefit from wherever the political winds are shifting in that moment.”
Hudson, who is biracial, has indicated on his website that he believes the country has regressed into a conversation that is not about color-blind opportunity, but of unfair privilege. He grew up, he indicated in his floor discussion, not able to comprehend why chattel slavery and the Holocaust were able to happen. “People were not treated equally at the beginning, but we have gotten a lot better.”
He also objected to the ERA because it does not protect the unborn. “I don’t think you’ve thought this one through,” he said. “What happens when someone figures out the disparate impact of the ability to kill your unborn child if that conflicts with another category? It’s amazing how the concern for disparate impact has a cut-off at the most vulnerable, the most helpless. Suddenly we don’t care anymore. Now we’re going to change the constitution of the state of Minnesota so that for all time we are going to calcify the permanent [denial of] rights of the unborn.”
Rep. Lisa Demeth (GOP–Cold Spring), House Minority Leader, had a more focused discussion that drew attention to not providing equal rights for all. She noted that the ERA did not offer protection for the elderly, and that limiting protections “to a narrow list chosen by politicians” is dangerous, as is inclusion of “vague language about pregnancy. Already in Minnesota we are equal. Hiding the true intent from voters is wrong. When you enshrine the votes of some, you diminish the rights of others.”
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