Sequestering the ERA

If the commission did not in fact approach the subject of the ERA with an open mind, neither did it consider the subject lightly or arrive easily at the stand it took. The Women's Bureau and the commission staff recognized that, improperly handled, the dispute over the ERA could still make the commission fruitless. Even the commission members, many of whom were not privy to Peterson's rationale for the Commission's establishment, realized the dangers. Hyman Bookbinder, representing the secretary of commerce, broached the issue at the first meeting, feeling, he said, like "the proverbial fool who likes to move in where angles fear to tread." Remarking that the amendment had "divided the country" for years, he asserted that "if this Commission does nothing else [but] get an accommodation of views on this difficult and delicate area, we will have made a

substantial contribution." Viola Hymes, president of the National Council of Jewish Women, agreed that the ERA had been "the most divisive . . . issue . . . among women's organizations," which had not reexamined their positions on it for twenty-five years. The commission would, she felt, "enable the women's organizations to take a new look in the light of developments and changes which will be very helpful." "Maybe," she suggested, "the women's groups will get together." To this Peterson declared: "It will be worth the Commission if we do it."^[53]

But for the commission to unite women's groups on this issue, it first had to make sure it would not itself be torn apart by it. Indeed, the planners evolved a way to prevent such an outcome—by sequestering the highly loaded discussion so that it did not supplant the rest of the commission's work. The commission turned the issue over to one of seven subunits it had established, the Committee on Civil and Political Rights. Because no public statement on the ERA would be made until the commission concluded its work, the other six committees could address the many additional problems women faced without themselves becoming embroiled in the conflict over constitutional equality.^[54]

As a result of this strategy, the Committee on Civil and Political Rights became the first commission body to confront the problem of the ERA directly. It did so in an exceedingly civilized fashion. Representative Edith Green, an ERA opponent, chaired the committee, although Marguerite Rawalt, the commission's one ERA advocate, took over when Green turned her attention to her reelection campaign. Peterson had appointed Rawalt to the commission because she considered her a sensible and thoughtful advocate of the ERA; Rawalt, in her turn, respected Peterson's directness and her commitment to improving women's employment laws. Committee membership, apart from the two commission members, included two representatives of labor unions, six members of the legal profession, most of them opposed to the ERA, and three presidents of pro-ERA women's organizations. ERA supporters were outnumbered, but at least they were represented.^[55]

The committee met for the first time in May 1962 and quickly established pointedly even-handed procedures for deal-

ing with the ERA. Like the other commission subunits, the Committee on Civil and Political Rights began to accumulate data, in the form of returned questionnaires from women's organizations (on both sides of the ERA controversy), staff papers, and the findings of committee members' own research. The committee decided to invite four organizations—two groups favoring the amendment (the National Woman's party and the BPW) and two opposed (the American Association of University Women and the American Nurses Association)—to present their opinions on the ERA at the next meeting.^[56]