Contact:

Julia Huston, WBA President
 617.692.2264
 wbapresident@womensbar.org

Ann Morse Hartner, Co-Chair, Legislative Policy Committee
 617.964.7000
 ahartner@rfglawyers.com  

WBA President testifies on bill that would prohibit amendments to State's citizen petition process

(BOSTON)– April 10, 2007– The President of the Women's Bar Association (WBA), Julia Huston, testified before the Judiciary Committee in support of House Bill 1772, which would prohibit amendments to the Massachusetts Constitution affecting civil rights through the citizen petition process.

"The WBA firmly believes that civil rights are too important and too fundamental to be put to a popular vote," said Ms. Huston. "If we allowed the civil rights of minority groups be decided by a majority of voters, those civil rights could easily disappear. The WBA supports House Bill 1772 and other measures which would prohibit voters in Massachusetts from taking away people's civil rights, including but not limited to equal marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples. Our constitutional democracy requires no less."

Read Ms. Huston's testimony below:

"Good afternoon. My name is Julia Huston. I am an attorney in Boston at the firm of Bromberg & Sunstein and I appear before the Judiciary Committee today in my capacity as President of the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts. The WBA is our Commonwealth’s preeminent professional association of women attorneys and judges, with over 1300 members across the Commonwealth. The WBA was founded in 1978 and is one of the largest and most influential women’s bar associations in the nation.

The WBA is committed to the full and equal participation of women in the legal profession and in a just society. Our role of protecting the civil rights of women and other historically disenfranchised groups compels our presence here today.

Civil rights are simply too important, and too fundamental to our democracy, to be put to a popular vote. 

Surveys have repeatedly shown that if our nation’s Bill of Rights were today submitted to the voters for approval, it would be defeated as simply “too radical.”  A fundamental principle of constitutional democracy is one that places a check on the determination of the majority to harm certain groups or take away certain fundamental rights. Without this check on the inclinations of the majority, we never would have banished slavery, given women the right to vote, made wives equal under the law with their husbands, ended segregation, or allowed interracial marriage. Today, the right of same-sex couples to marry hangs in the balance. 

Our state’s and nation’s founders recognized that some matters--particularly those protecting civil rights-–should not be subject to the changing winds of public opinion and prejudice. 

Throughout our nation’s history, Massachusetts has proudly led the struggle for civil rights.  We were the first state in our young nation to outlaw race discrimination in public places, and we were among the first states to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. At times of conservative backtracking nationally, our federal courts have looked to the language of the Massachusetts Constitution and decades of case law. By so doing, the nation has continued to protect the principles upon which a just society is founded. Allowing the civil rights of our citizens to be put to a referendum puts us at risk of a “tyranny of the majority,” and endangers the very bedrock of what makes our nation and Commonwealth great.

The WBA supports H1772 with the proposed changes currently under consideration by the sponsoring legislators, and urges a favorable report."

Also read: An Act to Protect Massachusetts Families Through Equal Access to Civil Marriage

About the Women’s Bar Association
Formed in 1978 by a group of activist women lawyers, the Women’s Bar Association has grown to more than 1,000 women lawyers from around the state, committed to the full and equal participation of women in the legal system and a just society.