Opinion

Progressive Voice is a weekly column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of their organizations of ARLnow.com

By Laura Saul Edwards

I wholeheartedly support an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution and while there are many reasons to fight for it, here are three that are important to me.

I will never forget the day I discovered that a male colleague with the same job title and responsibilities earned more than I did, despite having worked fewer years in the same office. It was a soul-searing experience that left me depressed, enraged and hurt. It is unacceptable to treat women as second-class citizens by denying them equal civil rights in a nation that values equality and opportunity for all. I do not want this future for my daughter or any other woman.

So first, ERA ratification is essential to guaranteeing that “…equality of rights under law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of sex,” as affirmed in the ERA text. The Constitution is the last word on civil rights, yet a ban against gender discrimination is not in this foundational document. Lack of equality under law on the basis of sex is a glaring omission rendering our Constitution incomplete.

Yes, Congress has enacted laws to improve civil rights protections on the basis of sex. But legislation can be amended, repealed or invalidated in part, as happened in 2000 when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the civil remedy provision in the Violence Against Women Act.

Enshrining the ERA in the Constitution will confirm gender equity is protected and subject to the same high standard as the prohibition against discrimination on the basis of race, national origin and religion. This is because the ERA would require judges to apply strict scrutiny — and not weaker intermediate scrutiny as is now the case — when deciding sex discrimination lawsuits.

State Sen. Janet Howell (D-32nd District) made precisely this argument when she pointed out: “Women are left out of the Constitution. We merit the same rights as men…and they should be explicitly stated.”

Second, Virginians want the General Assembly to pass ERA! A poll conducted by the Judy Ford Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University reports strong bipartisan approval across demographic lines. Overall, 81 percent of Virginia’s voters support ERA ratification. Among men, older voters and in House and Senate districts represented by Republicans, support for the amendment reaches 60 percent to 70 percent. These results offer clear-cut direction for elected officials to vote “yea.”

Locally, the Arlington County Civic Federation and Arlington Democrats have adopted resolutions in support of ERA. The Arlington County Board also made ratification of ERA one of its policy priorities in 2019.

Julia Tanner, president of the Equal Rights Coalition (a regional network working for ratification of the amendment) observed, “Virginia has a long history of amending the Constitution to uphold our inalienable rights. We brought the Bill of Rights into the Constitution. Now we have momentum to include women in that Bill of Rights.”

Third, Virginia can make history by approving the ERA. Virginia would be the 38^th state to ratify the amendment, moving gender equity one step closer to reality by reaching the threshold of three-fourths of the states needed for making it part of the Constitution.

Virginia is doing its part to get ERA to the finish line. Last week the Virginia Senate passed a resolution to ratify the amendment on a 26 to 41 vote. The next step is in the House of Delegates.

Earlier this week, the ERA amendment was defeated by a 4 to 2 vote in a subcommittee of the House Privileges and Elections Committee. However, Speaker of the House Kirk Cox (R-66th District) has the authority to ensure the amendment is brought before the full House of Delegates.

Despite this mounting excitement, strong support and demonstrated need for equal protection, it is sobering that Virginia has tried before and come up short on passing ERA.

Supporters must therefore be vigilant, especially in the face of a recurring claim by opponents that the deadline has expired for states to ratify the amendment. The original deadline is in the amendment’s preamble, not the amendment text, and Congress passed a subsequent deadline that has expired. However, a Congressional Research Service white paper established that the amendment could be added to the Constitution regardless of the ratification date.

Virginia’s Attorney General Mark Herring also examined this issue and determined “…the lapse of the ERA’s original and extended ratification periods has not disempowered the General Assembly from passing a ratify resolution.”

My keen and ardent hope is that the General Assembly helps Virginia make history by approving the Equal Rights Amendment. By doing so, our state would bring our nation a vital step closer to finally adding equality of the sexes to the Constitution.

Laura Saul Edwards has lived in Arlington County since 1994. She serves on the School Board’s Advisory Council on School Facilities and Capital Projects (FAC) and is an APS 2012 Honored Citizen.

Please call Speaker of the VA House of Delegates Kirk Cox at (804) 698 – 1066 and ask him to guarantee the ERA amendment is given a full and fair vote on the House floor in this session.

Progressive Voice is a weekly column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of their organizations or ARLnow.

By Laura Saul Edwards

President Trump’s current, partial government shutdown has achieved the dubious distinction of being the longest in our history. Before Trump began the shutdown on Dec. 22, he announced “I am proud to shut down the government,” and he promised Senate Majority Leader Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Speaker of the House Pelosi (D-Calif.) “I’m not going to blame you for it.” One month later Trump changed his tune and tweeted “The Democrats own the shutdown!”

Arlington is enduring a heavy share of the emotional stress and financial turmoil caused by this deplorable situation.

We are part of the 8^th Congressional District, which has the most federal workers or any district in the nation. Our congressman, U.S. Representative Don Beyer (D-8th District), pointed out “federal employees should never be used as political pawns, especially for a senseless and ineffective wall. I’ve received hundreds of calls and letters from my constituents who overwhelmingly oppose the shutdown and just want to get back to work. I’ve heard from people living in anguish and fear, not knowing where the money is going to come from to pay for their tuition, their rent, their groceries, or their health care. This cannot continue. Every day this shutdown drags on, it does lasting damage to the federal workforce and the country.”

The president’s aims that are driving the shutdown are the antithesis of progressive values. He is not relying on facts to justify his demand for $5.7 billion to augment the existing physical barriers along our southern border to address a bogus “national security crisis.”

The shutdown is not based on sound economic policy. The president’s own Council of Economic Advisors doubled its estimate of how much economic growth is being lost each day the shutdown continues. As it is, by the end of January, the shutdown will exceed the $5.7 billion the president requested for the disputed wall.

The shutdown is not about equality or fairness, as demonstrated in the president’s own Dec. 27 tweet in which he glibly noted that “most of the people not getting paid are Democrats.”

Congress and the administration are in a standoff on re-opening the government. Democrats in the House have passed bills that would put 800,000 federal employees back to work while allowing negotiations on border security and the disputed wall to continue on a separate track. Only a handful of House Republicans have joined them. And in the Senate, Majority Leader McConnell (R-Ky.) insists he will not take up any bill that President Trump will not sign.

And as the shutdown drags on, some senior Administration officials say it is about permanently downsizing the federal workforce. They make long-debunked claims of widespread “waste, fraud and abuse” that have the effect of dehumanizing the federal workforce. Demonizing federal employees is nothing new — after all, it was President Ronald Reagan who said “The nine most feared words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.'” Sadly, this shutdown is the ugly nadir of 40 years of incessant anti-government rhetoric from conservatives.

In response, local progressives and businesses are working hard to show solidarity with the federal employees and contractors in our community — and to affirm the importance of their service to our country.

The Arlington Democrats’ Blue Families group held a “Missing Paychecks Protest & Potluck” with Beyer on Jan. 15. Beyer has been listening to and fighting for his affected constituents since the shutdown began, and in response introduced a bill to guarantee back pay for furloughed government workers (H.R. 67). He also is supporting a bill to ensure back pay for federal contractors, such as janitors (H.R. 4875).

Several Arlington restaurants, bars, cafes and gyms are offering freebies and discounts to affected federal workers. Many vendors at the Westover Farmers Market are offering discounts to furloughed workers and free local apples from the “Shutdown Apple Cart™”. The Animal Welfare League of Arlington has opened its food bank for the pets of furloughed owners for the duration of the shutdown.

In addition, this Friday (January 18), Arlington Public Schools will be holding a job fair to hire qualified federal workers as substitute teachers.

Arlington County also announced several actions to ease financial pressure on affected county residents and businesses.

When asked about the shutdown, long-time Arlington resident, civic leader and retired federal employee John F. Seymour proclaimed, “I am glad our elected officials — Beyer, Kaine, and Warner –are refusing to let Trump use the shutdown as a bargaining chip. Let’s get our government employees back to work… and an honest, factual debate on the need for a wall can take place.”

While all of these responses to the shutdown confirm Arlington’s progressive values, the most welcome action of all would be to immediately re-open the entire federal government and return all furloughed workers and contract workers to their jobs.

In this way, government could be an effective tool for the public good, and not a force for harming our security, economy and morale, as is now the case.

Laura Saul Edwards has lived in Arlington County since 1994. She serves on the School Board’s Advisory Council on School Facilities and Capital Projects (FAC) and is an APS 2012 Honored Citizen.

If you are a furloughed worker and don’t know where to start with sorting out your life during this time, dial 2-1-1 or go to www.211.org for confidential assistance.

Progressive Voice is a weekly column. The views and opinions expressed in the column are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of their organizations or ARLnow.

By Laura Saul Edwards

Arlington is rightfully proud to have attracted Amazon — one of the world’s largest companies — to our community.

Despite the Amazon hoopla and hubbub, what I interact with every day is more the lifeblood of Arlington — its small businesses. At a time when there is so much attention focused on Amazon, making sure that these smaller enterprises get an equal opportunity and visibility in Arlington’s economic scene is a core progressive value, rooted in fairness and diversification. This would enhance opportunities for small businesses to thrive alongside the big businesses located in Arlington.

For example, on a typical day, I walk my dog down the street to Livin’ the Pie Life where I read the newspaper and do email while enjoying a cup of coffee and a fresh scone. My son’s math tutor, a local middle-school teacher, arrives at our house for their weekly sessions while I am teaching piano lessons in my music studio. On other days, I might attend informal meetings or purchase gifts at Trade Roots in Westover, brunch with friends at Cafe Sazon on Columbia Pike, or snack on tasty treats sold by food truck vendors at events such as the Nauck “Feel the Heritage” festival.

Small businesses are the unifying element in all of these Arlington experiences — and so blessedly untypical from the national chain lookalikes.

Commissioner of Revenue Ingrid H. Morroy recently noted that approximately 8,500 small businesses have set up shop in Arlington. Wendy MacCallum and Heather Sheire (Livin’ the Pie Life), Lisa Ostroff (Trade Roots), and Karen Bate (KB Concepts P.R. and also co-founder of Awesome Women Entrepreneurs — AWE, a networking group of 150 women-owned Arlington businesses) are among the small business owners that Morroy referred to.

These entrepreneurs are doing something they love. They concur they “wouldn’t consider running a business anywhere else!” They agree the county employees they interact with are pleasant, helpful and “go the extra mile” to help them. They also said the business ombudsman assists small businesses with navigating inter-governmental processes, the workshops from Arlington Economic Development’s BizLaunch network are useful and the move to a one-stop capability for filing business paperwork and making payments digitally is helping reduce their administrative burden.

However, as noted by other small business owners, they lack the financial and staffing resources of their larger counterparts for navigating requirements and challenging government decisions affecting their daily operations. They made a heartfelt plea for Arlington government to consider adjusting requirements, fees and timetables accordingly.

Another recurring complaint was that small business people were told by one county staffer to do a task to only be told by another staffer that it either wasn’t necessary or else must be re-done differently. In the case of small businesses, these episodes usually have an outsized impact on their profits and operations.

At this turning point in Arlington’s development, there are meaningful ways in which county government can equitably support small business.

First, ensure county staff are “operating from the same play book” to avoid delivering conflicting advice or imposing unnecessary requirements on small businesses.

Second, increase the threshold for filing a business license tax return to $100,000 per year, as promoted by Morroy. Raising the threshold would cost the county approximately $200,000 annually in lost revenue. But, given the county’s $1 billion-plus budget, this loss is justified and about 6,000 businesses — about 75 percent of Arlington’s small businesses — would be relieved of this paperwork. Plus, Commissioner’s Office staff would have more time for conducting tax audits of larger companies, an effort that could conceivably recoup enough money to exceed the revenue lost.

Third, establish county-funded grants to help small businesses lease space in the street-level quarters of the vacant and nearly vacant office towers in Arlington. This could make Arlington’s neighborhoods more vibrant while demonstrating a strong commitment to small businesses wanting to establish a foothold here.

Arlington is still recovering from its experience as a “company town” for the federal government. Putting as much focus into our local small businesses will help us avoid reverting to the company town model while promoting the commercial diversity that reflects our progressive values and makes Arlington a great place to live, work and play.

Laura Saul Edwards has lived in Arlington County since 1994. She serves on the School Board’s Advisory Council on School Facilities and Capital Projects (FAC) and is an APS 2012 Honored Citizen.

Photo of local business owner Lisa Ostroff in Westover’s Trade Roots courtesy of Laura Saul Edwards