Bill Text: CA AR39 | 2019-2020 | Regular Session | Amended
Bill Title: Relative to the Nineteenth Amendment.
Spectrum: Moderate Partisan Bill (Democrat 58-14-1)
Status: (Passed) 2019-06-03 - Read. Adopted. (Page 2175.). [AR39 Detail]
Download: California-2019-AR39-Amended.html
|
Amended
IN
Assembly
May 21, 2019 |
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE—
2019–2020 REGULAR SESSION
| House Resolution | No. 39 |
| Introduced by Assembly Member Limón |
May 14, 2019 |
Relative to the Nineteenth Amendment.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
HR 39, as amended, Limón.
Digest Key
Bill Text
WHEREAS, The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which states that “the rights of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex,” guarantees women the right to vote, a right known as women’s suffrage; and
WHEREAS, The Nineteenth Amendment took almost a century of activism, campaigning, and protests to be adopted. In July 1848, reformers Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized the first women’s rights convention at Seneca Falls, New York. In 1869, the National Woman Suffrage Association, led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was formed to advocate an amendment to the United States Constitution that would grant women the right to vote. The American Woman Suffrage Association, led by Lucy Stone, was organized in the same year to pursue a state-by-state strategy to pass such an amendment to the United States Constitution. In 1890, these two organizations were united to create the National American Woman Suffrage Association; and
WHEREAS, The wording of the Nineteenth Amendment was first introduced in the United States Senate in January 1878 by Senator Aaron A. Sargent from California. Senator Sargent was an outspoken women’s suffrage advocate. He testified before the United States Senate in support of the amendment alongside female activists. However the proposal was rejected by United States Senate in a 16 to 34 vote in 1887; and
WHEREAS, In 1916, Alice Paul, Chair of the Washington, D.C. Committee of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, created the National Women's Party (NWP), a political party advocating for the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment. NWP members were the first women in history to picket the White House in 1917; and
WHEREAS, In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson recognized the increased role of women in American society, especially during the involvement of the United States in World War I by supporting women’s suffrage in his address to the United States Senate. As reported in The New York Times on October 1, 1918, President Wilson said, “I regard the extension of suffrage to women as vitally essential to the successful prosecution of the great war of humanity in which we are engaged.” However, despite President Wilson’s support, the United States Senate did not pass the amendment at that time; and
WHEREAS, On May 21, 1919, The United States House of Representatives passed a resolution to approve the Nineteenth Amendment by a vote of 304 to 89 — a full 42 votes above the required two-thirds majority. On June 4, 1919, the United States Senate passed the amendment by two votes over the required two-thirds vote threshold. The amendment was then sent to the states for ratification; and
WHEREAS, Although some state legislatures opposed women’s suffrage, the California Legislature was not one of them. On November 1, 1919, then-Governor William D. Stephens called a special session of the Legislature to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment, and the California Legislature passed the amendment on the same day; and
WHEREAS, On August 18, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified by 36 states, receiving ratification by two-thirds three-fourths of the states necessary to make it the law of the land. Today, all 50 states have ratified the Nineteenth Amendment; and
WHEREAS, Although the United States granted women the right to vote in 1920, in California, women had already won the right to vote in 1911, nearly a decade earlier, making California one of the first six states in the nation to approve women’s suffrage; now now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Assembly of the State of California, That the Assembly hereby recognizes June 4, 2019, as the 100th Anniversary of Congress Passing the Nineteenth Amendment and encourages all Californians to join in this observance; and be it further
Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly prepare and transmit a copy of the resolution to the Governor.
