Most Massachusetts Incumbents Win; Voters Adopt Equal Rights Amendment

Choruses of "I Am Woman" greeted reports early this morning at Boston's Parker House that Massachusetts voters had approved the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) to the state constitution.

Supporters of the ERA gathered at the hotel early yesterday evening to watch the bill amass an early lead and finish with only a comfortable plurality of 12 per cent of the vote.

Upstairs, the scene was considerably more subdued, as backers of a referendum question to ban handguns in the state saw the bill go down to defeat, along with separate initiatives to institute a graduated income tax, uniform electric rates and a public power authority.

Voters yesterday approved three other referendum questions, while the fate of the "bottle bill" remained unclear early this morning. (See separate story on all the questions, p.8.)

"We won because it's right and it's long overdue," Ann Kendall, chairman of the Committee to Ratify the ERA, said as she watched returns filter in last night.

She attributed the ERA's success to "fantastic organization, intelligence and talent--I was only the glue" within her committee and others like it.

Passage of the ERA guarantees that equality under the law "shall not be denied or abridged because of sex, race, color, creed or national origin."

As an amendment to the Massachusetts constitution, it will affect only public institutions within the state.

Shortly after 10 p.m. last night, when the amendment appeared certain to pass, Gov. Michael S. Dukakis and Katherine Dukakis, his wife, visited the Parker House to offer congratulations to supporters of the amendment.

"I feel good, but my wife feels very good," Dukakis told The Crimson. "They [other states] are always looking at Massachusetts as an unusual place. Maybe this time they will follow us," he said.

Massachusetts is the sixteenth state to vote equal rights provisions into law.

Joan Cohen and Husband

Joan Cohen and her husband, Jerome, professor of Law, stood chatting with Kendall and reporters early yesterday evening.

"My wife is an ardent feminist--I am the escort," Jerome Cohen said. "And I want to see the way it is not done in China," Cohen, an expert on Chinese society, added.

The evening's theme song was the Helen Reddy-popularized hit "I am Woman," which the all-male three-piece band in the ERA reception ballroom played nonstop for long intervals.

When the amendment had taken a commanding lead, many of the women present in the hall began singing it loudly and dancing, hands clasped.

Several of the women boarded an open- roofed truck outside the Parker House, and drove through the streets of Boston waving ERA banners and shouting "We won, we won" to pedestrians