It’s Not Just About the Next Four Years. It’s About the Next Forty

by Jen Nedeau

Published October 18, 2008 @ 08:46AM PT

Yesterday I got the privilege of speaking with Eleanor Smeal, the President of Feminist Majority. Smeal has been a leader in the feminist movement for several decades and she has participated in key legislative movements including the Free Access to Clinic Entrances legislation that President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1994, the defeat of Proposition 209 in California, the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, the Equal Credit Act, the Civil Rights Restoration Act, the Violence Against Women Act, the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1991 and the fight to amend the Equal Rights Amendment.

The most pressing issue now for Smeal and the Feminist Majority is the upcoming election between Barack Obama and John McCain on November 4^th, 2008.

When we spoke over the phone yesterday, Smeal said that there are just "too many women who are undecided" about who they are going to vote for on November 4th, but never before have there been two candidates with more diametrically opposed platforms when it comes to women's rights.

Senators Obama and Biden have sponsored and supported legislation, including funding, to reduce violence against women and to assist women survivors of domestic abuse. Biden authored the federal Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). Obama cosponsored the reauthorization of VAWA and authored legislation on violence against women as an Illinois State Senator.

Senator McCain voted against establishing the Army's Breast Cancer Research Program, opposed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would restore a woman's right to fight pay discrimination in court and has ducked questions on contraceptive insurance discrimination as recently as July 2008.

For these reasons and many others, every major women's rights group has endorsed the Obama-Biden ticket. In order to try and secure any remaining votes by undecided female voters, the Feminist Majority launched www.FeministsForObama.org, a side-by-side comparison of the Democratic and Republican nominees on four major women's issues: Violence Against Women, Abortion and Contraception, Women and Work, and Breast Cancer and Health Care.

During our conversation, Smeal said that this election has the potential to overturn decades of work in civil rights, women's rights and human rights if a Democrat is not elected. The efforts by the neoconservatives to rollback judicial rulings over the past thirty years are now within striking distance if another Republican is elected. As McCain stated during the last Presidential debate, health care is a "responsibility" versus Obama's statement of saying that it is a "right." This is the integral difference between the two candidates. As constitutional lawyers, Obama and Biden will task the government and judiciary to uphold citizen's rights whereas McCain and Palin will advocate taking away rights and creating legislation that places all the responsibility on the individual.

Imagine that - a country where there would be zero impetus for the government to stand up for any acts of discrimination or injustice. In my opinion, it just seems oxymoronic that anyone would use their right to vote in order to vote out the idea of rights protected by the government.

Thus, whether you are a woman, man, lesbian, homosexual, black, white, handicapped, poor, or an immigrant - there are some serious issues at play in this election when it comes to protecting the future of your rights. Everyone should think deeply not only about how these candidates will change the country during the next four years, but potentially the next forty because right now we have four liberal leaning justices who are on the verge of replacement: Justice Breyer ( Age 70), Justice Kennedy (Age 72), Justice Ginsburg (Age 75) and Justice Stevens (Age 88).

The GOP already has significant control of the Supreme Court with John Roberts as Chief Justice, but the idea of an entirely conservative bench is rather frightening in my opinion. I urge everyone to take control of their vote this election and truly consider how the next forty years will look when you cast a ballot on November 4^th, 2008.