hesco's blog

The Equal Rights Amendment is the law

hesco — Sat, 16 Mar 2024 02:35:00 +0000

The Equal Rights Amendment is the law hesco Fri, 03/15/2024 - 22:35

The Equal Rights Amendment is the law
https://emanuelpastreich24.org/make-the-equal-rights-amendment-the-law/

Stop unconstitutional governance
Emanuel Pastreich, Independent Candidate for President, March 14th, 2024

When Virginia approved the Equal Rights Amendment in January 2020, the thirty-eight states demanded by the Constitution for legal ratification of an amendment was reached. Some foolishly assumed that when the Biden Administration took power, it would recognize the law in light of President Biden’s constant harping on the ERA, and also because his cabinet had made identity and diversity such key themes in their speeches. Such Americans were sadly mistaken. The unaccountable Biden administration is as unencumbered by the Constitution as the Trump administration was and the Equal Rights Amendment is treated by the executive and judiciary as if it did not exist.

Under President Biden, we face a dictatorship that masquerades as the restoration of the rule of law. The constitutional crisis resulting from Biden’s contempt for the Equal Rights Amendment represents the cold steel fist in a multicultural fluffy glove that is his administration.

Bella Abzug and others March for the ERA

Following the Constitution, and federal law, the Biden administration has no say about whether the Equal Rights Amendment becomes the foundation for all debate on equality of citizens before the law. The executive branch is empowered to implement laws and regulations, the legislative branch is empowered to draft and approve laws and regulations and it has already approved the Equal Rights Amendment. The courts are responsible for determining that the laws are upheld.

Even more importantly, the corporate media, the pay-to-play public intellectuals promoted by big business, and other shadowy players who hire expensive lobbyists and PR firms have no role to play in the determination of policy or law.

The Equal Rights Amendment is already the law. Its content is fully supported by the vast majority of Americans. The Biden administration pretends the ERA is not the law because it does not care about working women, and because it is tasked by corporations with carrying out the slow demolition of the United States of America as a constitutional republic, and creating a political Disneyland that is driven by domestic repression wherein personalities or images in the mass media, not laws, legitimate the illegal actions of the government.

None of the corporations funding the Biden administration want a law like the Equal Rights Amendment to come into force that was not paid for by their stockholders. In other words, democracy must be repressed by any means necessary. Corporate rule, however, can be branded as democracy at any time.

None of this would be possible without the radical privatization of the Federal Government, launched by Bill Clinton and implemented by Dick Cheney.

The Equal Rights Amendment’s status as national law came to a head at the confirmation hearing for Colleen Shogan as national archivist on September 21, 2022. Ms. Shogan stated disingenuously that she would demur to the judicial branch concerning her findings that the Equal Rights Amendment had been ratified.

The legal reality is that Title 1 of United States Code, Section 106b, mandates that the archivist must publish to the Federal Register her finding concerning a constitutional amendment whenever the conditions laid out under Section V. of the U.S. Constitution have been met.

It is as simple as that. Neither the Biden Administration, the Congress, or the courts have a role to play.

But it is worse than this intentional misrule of government is what has been done by those supposedly defending women. Christian F. Nunes, national president of NOW (National Organization for Women) went as far as to endorse President Biden for reelection on August 25, 2023, without any conditions or demands, long before the convention, and in spite of his unconstitutional position regarding the Equal Rights Amendment.

We are looking at vested class interests that can barely hide their bloated forms behind the progressive clothing that they wear. Christian Nunes may be an African American woman, but she does not represent the concerns of ordinary working women. Rather she follows the demands of the establishment players who fund and promote NOW and other NGOs. It is not her job to stand up for the rights of all women, but rather to flatter her funders most of whom are indifferent to the needs of working citizens because their stock portfolios are essential for their comfortable retirements.

The real reason that the Equal Rights Amendment is not a priority, even after it has become the law, is that its protection for women could potentially apply to all women, including working women, poor women, women sweeping floors at Amazon, or forced to act in pornographic films. That is to say that the ERA could be used by citizens to fight exploitative practices of corporations—often explicitly aimed at women.

Nothing could be more threatening to the multinational corporations like Facebook, Google, and Oracle who pour their money into the Democratic Party while they work women to death in their factories at home and abroad.

It is great that we have millionaire women of different ethnicities in the Biden administration. I doubt that any corporate lawyers are staying up late at night worrying about that kind of identity politics.

But what if the Equal Rights Amendment is interpreted by a court as meaning that Walmart must provide daycare to all women employees? Do you think the multibillionaire Walton family will stand for that? Or will they send their lobbyists to the Biden cabinet and tell it who wears the pants? It seems likely that they have already done so.

And then there is the massive pornography and prostitution industries which now dwarf most other sectors and are rabidly defended at every turn by the IT multinationals who secretly have their snouts in that filthy trough. Those partners will never let the Biden people stand up for the Equal Rights Amendment because it might protect the women they exploit from their predations and thus cut deep into profits.

And then there are those who use the cover of “transgender” to undermine equal rights for women. They are afraid that this law might actually be used to defend women from psychological operations that subject women to sexual violence by men who pretend to be women—all part of a dumbing down and subjugation strategy aimed at citizens that is carried out by private intelligence firms using Homeland Security budgets. That covert war on women cannot tolerate an Equal Rights Amendment that could be interpreted as applying to all women.

No, under the Biden administration the rights of women to be protected from exploitation and discrimination applies only to those living in safe upper-middle class neighborhoods. None of the wealthy women of the Biden administration are willing to stand in solidarity with working women who must struggle to defend themselves from sexual assault at the factory or from discrimination by their supervisors; they do not stand with working women who are trying to protect their children. Most of those wealthy women with corporate backgrounds have never had to deal with these threats.

The Green Alliance for Sex-Based Rights has repeatedly pointed out that both the actions and the inactions of the Biden Administration have created a constitutional crisis, and are evidence of President Biden’s failure in his constitutional duty to see that the laws of the nation are faithfully executed. I uphold that position and I demand that the Equal Rights Amendment be accepted as the law.

Cori Bush Urges Merrick Garland Repudiate OLC Letter directing National Archivist to Ignore Statutory Duty to Acknowledge Ratification of Equal Rights Amendment

hesco — Sat, 23 Sep 2023 20:50:00 +0000

Cori Bush Urges Merrick Garland Repudiate OLC Letter directing National Archivist to Ignore Statutory Duty to Acknowledge Ratification of Equal Rights Amendment hesco Sat, 09/23/2023 - 16:50

Last week Representative Corey Bush (D, MO) used her 5 minutes to question Attorney General Merrick Garland as an opportunity to urge the repudiation of the Trump administration's Office of Legal Counsel's letter directing the National Archivist to ignore her statutory duty to acknowledge the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment as the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Marianne Williamson Pledges Day One Action to Publish the ERA

hesco — Sun, 27 Aug 2023 07:02:00 +0000

Marianne Williamson Pledges Day One Action to Publish the ERA hesco Sun, 08/27/2023 - 03:02

Attorney Mary Mahoney offers oral arguments for Elizabeth Cady Stanton Trust for recognition that ERA has already been ratified.

hesco — Mon, 27 Feb 2023 23:59:00 +0000

Attorney Mary Mahoney offers oral arguments for Elizabeth Cady Stanton Trust for recognition that ERA has already been ratified. hesco Mon, 02/27/2023 - 18:59

This is how Wendy Murphy described this hearing on her twitter feed:

Incredible job today in court by ERA Attorney Mary Mahoney from Michigan! Really powerful oral argument in support of the ERA and full equality for all #Women! Thanks to leading Women’s rights group Elizabeth Cady Stanton Trust for its fierce leadership!

Wendy Murphy hosted by Nora Stanton Blatch addresses National Votes for Women Trail Marker tour

hesco — Thu, 22 Dec 2022 18:58:00 +0000

Wendy Murphy hosted by Nora Stanton Blatch addresses National Votes for Women Trail Marker tour hesco Thu, 12/22/2022 - 13:58

Publish the ERA, Let the Skirmishes Begin

hesco — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 22:24:00 +0000

Publish the ERA, Let the Skirmishes Begin hesco Wed, 12/21/2022 - 17:24

Here is how former NYT journalist Maura Casey has weighed in on the issue on her Casey's Catch substack.

Publish ERA, let skirmishes begin

Time to settle whether imposed time limits are legal

I’m thrilled that President Joe Biden signed into federal law Dec. 13 a proposal to protect gay and interracial marriage. It’s an attempt to deter an increasingly conservative Supreme Court from stripping away those rights. We’ll see if it works.

What an outrage, then, that the president is fighting adding the Equal Rights Amendment for women to the constitution. He’s gone to court to prevent the ERA from being published by the National Archives and Records Administration. In this, he has followed in the footsteps of the man he refers to as “the former guy,” Donald J. Trump.

National ERA March for Ratification and Extension

Proponents say that the ERA was ratified in 2020 when Virginia became the 38th state to pass it, despite time limits imposed by Congress years ago. More on that in a minute. Publishing the amendment is a crucial, if bureaucratic, step to send a ratified amendment to the states and add it to the Constitution. The head of the National Archives - the keeper of the nation’s file cabinets - is tasked with this job. But Trump and now Biden have fought to keep that from happening.

“The ERA has become a victim of the very discrimination it was written to prevent,” said Massachusetts attorney Wendy Murphy.

Murphy is director of the Women’s and Children’s Advocacy Project at New England Law/Boston. In January of 2020, on behalf of the nonprofit organization Equal Means Equal, Murphy filed a federal lawsuit in Massachusetts to compel publication of the ERA. The judge dismissed the case for lack of standing, stating that those who brought the lawsuit didn’t prove that they had suffered harm that would be protected by the ERA. Right after Murphy sued in 2020, the last three states to ratify the ERA, Virginia, Nevada and Illinois, also sued. Their suit, too, was dismissed for lack of standing.

In September. the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia heard the states’ appeal. The Biden administration went on record in court opposing publication of the ERA. No ruling has been handed down, but the judges’ comments were not encouraging.

In 1975, I went to the polls for the first time and cast my very first vote in favor of adding an Equal Rights Amendment to the New York State constitution. That measure lost by 400,000 votes. It was the canary in the coal mine, a sign of the coming opposition to the federal ERA, much of it galvanized by unwarranted fear and false information. Yet I was convinced that passing the Equal Rights Amendment nationwide was only a matter of time.

Nearly 50 years later, I’m still waiting.

The amendment has fewer than 60 words:

Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of sex.

Sec. 2 The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Sec. 3 This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

That’s it.

According to the text of the amendment, the ERA should have become part of the constitution in January, two years after Virginia ratified. It could have prevented Roe v. Wade from being overturned, one reason why right-leaning states oppose it so strongly.

The biggest barrier? Time limits.

The Equal Rights Amendment passed Congress in 1972 after having been introduced every year for nearly 50 years. But Senate opponents tacked on to the preamble of the joint resolution passing the amendment a seven-year time limit for states to ratify the amendment.

When the amendment stalled after 35 of the needed 38 states ratified, the seven-year time limit was extended for another three years. When the second time limit expired, opponents of women’s equality danced on what they assumed was the grave of the ERA.

After all, opponents crowed, such a radical amendment would allow gay people to marry. And women, fragile flowers that they are, could be sent into combat.

Well. Fast forward to the present day. Gays are marrying in droves, and good for them. Female soldiers have fought, bled and died in combat. The Constitution still doesn’t guarantee women equal rights.

Hundreds of legal experts and a number of U.S. senators don’t think that the ERA ever died. That it is currently the 28th amendment to our Constitution.

Prominent constitutional scholars argue that the ERA time limit was advisory only, as it was not in the text of the amendment. They also say that the five states which rescinded their approval of the ERA many years after approving it have no settled right to rescind (at least two states tried to rescind the 14th amendment, to no avail). Article V, which lays out precisely the steps to add an amendment to the Constitution, says nothing about time limits. Congress added them for several amendments in the 20th century to increase its own power and control. But those time limits were all added to the text of those amendments. Not so the ERA.

Congress passed amendments to the Constitution with time limits in the text of the 18th Amendment, prohibiting the sale of alcohol, repeal of Prohibition (the 21st Amendment) and Amendments 22 and 23, both concerning the presidency.

Here’s the infuriating part. In 1992, states ratified the 27th Amendment to the Constitution affecting congressional compensation. First passed by Congress in 1789, the amendment drifted around for 203 years before approval.

Really? The topic of congressional pay can hang around for two centuries before passage, but the rights of half the country had a seven-year deadline? Please.

So, now what?

The ERA needs to be published. Then we can all make popcorn and watch the legal skirmishes commence. But once published, it will be up to conservatives to prove why equality for women should continue to be excluded from the constitution of the world’s oldest democracy.

Let the games begin, President Biden. What are you afraid of?

Thank you for reading! Casey's Catch is a reader-supported publication. I hope you’ll become a free or paid subscriber.

Women's eNews: President Biden: Why Won’t You Publish The Equal Rights Amendment?

hesco — Wed, 09 Nov 2022 22:10:00 +0000

Women's eNews: President Biden: Why Won’t You Publish The Equal Rights Amendment? hesco Wed, 11/09/2022 - 17:10

Originally published: https://womensenews.org/2022/11/president-biden-why-wont-you-publish-the-equal-rights-amendment/

President Biden: Why Won’t You Publish The Equal Rights Amendment?

The Biden Administration is actually going into court and fighting against the Equal Rights Amendment, a right which would have saved Roe v. Wade.

Caitlin Rich
November 6, 2022

President Biden has failed to support the publication of the Equal Rights Amendment

“We must recognize the clear will of the American people and definitively enshrine the principle of gender equality in the Constitution. It is long past time that we put all doubt to rest. I am calling on Congress to act immediately to pass a resolution recognizing ratification of the ERA.”

–President Joseph Biden Jr.

This statement, released by President Biden two years after the state of Virginia’s ratification, is being labeled “clear duplicity” by Nicole Vorrasi Bates, attorney and founder of Shattering Glass. Although Biden has implied Congress is responsible for recognizing the Equal Rights Amendment, many politicians, lawyers and even scholars question why the Executive Branch has still not published it. Most recently, the DC Court of Appeals heard the oral arguments for Illinois v. Ferriero, but to this, Vorrasi Bates says, “The Biden Administration is actually going into court and fighting against the Equal Rights Amendment, a right which would have saved Roe v. Wade.”

Illinois v. Ferriero and the DC Court of Appeals

The Illinois v. Ferriero case was filed in 2020 by the Attorney Generals of Virginia, Illinois, and Nevada to convince the National Archivist at the time, David Ferriero, to recognize the ERA as the 28th Amendment to the US Constitution. In March of 2021, however, the DC Circuit denied the plaintiffs’ standing for a lack of ‘legal harm’ (defined as an ‘injury that is specific to the states’). Then this September, the Department of Justice claimed that the plaintiffs’ alleged injury is not personal to them nor concrete enough to be addressed in a judicial setting and asked for the DC Court of Appeals to uphold the dismissal. Sarah Harrington, the Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice, also argued that only a court, not Congress, can decide the legitimacy of the ERA’s deadline*. To Vorrasi Bates, this response makes the administration’s intentions suspect, since the administration publicly repeated that Congress is responsible for the ERA and yet presented a different opinion in court. (See The Biden Agenda for Women, Statement from President Biden on the Equal Rights Amendment, and Effect of 2020 OLC Opinion on Possible Congressional Action Regarding Ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment.) Vorrasi Bates contends that the Biden Administration would refuse to publish it even with a Congressional deadline removal.

Illinois’ Solicitor General Jane Notz and Assistant Attorney General Priyanka Gupta have argued that although the ERA is legally valid without publication, it will not command its intended effect without publication and certification, which would then enable all US citizens to benefit from the full legal right to equality, and compel states to change current discriminatory laws. But Columbia Law School’s ERA Project asserts it is unlikely that the states will be given standing, calling the argument a “very fine needle for the states to thread.” And even if standing is found, the ERA’s publication would not end the battle for its publication.

In addition to this case, at least four other cases have been filed. Equal Means Equal, the Yellow Roses, and a citizen named Katherine Weitbrecht filed a joint suit against Ferriero in 2020, asserting that congressional deadlines on the amendment process violate the original intentions of the Constitution’s framers and undermine state power. But the suit was dismissed for a lack of standing in 2021 and denied a rehearing in 2022, citing, “Women’s alleged risk of harm” does not satisfy a concrete injury caused by the Archivist’s action. Three other lawsuits were filed by the Elizabeth Cady Stanton Trust in Michigan, Rhode Island, and New York, each of which were meant to urge the Supreme Court to consider the ERA’s validity before overturning Roe v. Wade.

Allies to Illinois, Virginia, and Nevada

From the beginning, Illinois, Nevada, and Virginia have been supported by other states and organizations. In a press conference held after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals heard the oral arguments, Illinois’s Attorney General, Kwame Raoul, declared: “Equality based on sex is not radical. Don’t believe anyone who says it is too late for the ERA.” Speakers included Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Brenda Lawrence, and Jan Schakowsky, along with Senator Audrey Gibson, Zakiya Thomas (President and CEO of the ERA Coalition), Ellie Smeal (President and Co-Founder of the Feminist Majority Foundation), Bear Atwood (Vice President of NOW), and a member of the US military. Many in attendance emphasized the ERA’s urgency in the context of reproductive rights and protecting future generations, while the ERA Coalition commented, “today’s oral arguments prove what we already know: the ERA is neither merely symbolic nor redundant. Otherwise, opponents wouldn’t be fighting so hard to make sure it isn’t recognized as the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”

While the Archivist’s failure to publish the ERA is supported by organizations like the Eagle Forum—a conservative pro-life group founded by Phyllis Schlafly—and Concerned Women for America, at least thirteen amicus briefs have been filed in support of plaintiff states. Presenting a variety of concerns, all argue the ERA is a solution to gender inequality. One brief, written on behalf of 86 corporate companies with diverse commercial interests including Google, Apple, Pepsi Co, and American Express, described how sex equality would improve economic output, expand their customer bases, and remove the barriers women face to the labor market such as unequal access to education and housing, inadequate healthcare, sexual and intimate partner violence, and economic insecurity. They also asserted that it is more urgent now, given that women lost 11.3 million jobs in April 2020. Further, current legislation, such as the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, can be repealed by Congress or deprioritized by the Executive Branch. They conclude that the Archivist’s actions undermine full economic participation, harming plaintiff states. Representing the interests of workers, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor (affiliated with the national AFL-CIO) unanimously passed a resolution that called on Biden to certify and publish the ERA in August.

In addition to briefs, multiple parties have sent letters before and after the Dobbs decision to the Executive Branch, requesting Biden publish the ERA. In September, Shattering Glass crafted a letter to Biden from the American Medical Women’s Association (AMWA). Their main message was that the ERA is the most powerful tool for legalizing reproductive rights and without a constitutional base, comprehensive care, and even healthcare providers will continue to be threatened. The President of the American Constitution Society and former Senator Russ Feingold also sent a letter in September to Majority Leader Schumer, emphasizing the importance of bodily autonomy and the implications of the Dobbs decision not only on legal abortion, but also racial disparities in pregnancy-related deaths, economic independence, and the ability to marry regardless of sexual orientation or race. Feingold has been consistent in his position that the ERA must be enshrined and wrote to Chairwoman Maloney in March explaining that the amendment has met all constitutional requirements. Additional letters in support of the ERA include:

Chairwoman Maloney to Biden and Harris (October 2021)
Senators Blumenthal, Klobuchar, and Cortez Masto with Chairwoman Maloney and Congresswoman Speier to Assistant Attorney General Schroeder (January 2022)
Laurence Tribe to Chairwoman Maloney (March 2022)

Fate of the ERA

Vorrasi Bates is still not aware of any valid reason for why Biden is not publishing the ERA. And while several other legislators she has spoken to said they support gender equality in the Constitution, they have been reluctant to act. “It’s playing politics with the lives and the rights of women, girls, and the LGBTQIA+ community,” Vorrasi Bates contends, “It’s going to take a large public outcry to get Biden to publish it.” Despite this, she has faith that the ERA will survive, since its deadline is “illegitimate.” The DC Court of Appeals has not decided Illinois v. Ferriero yet, but a resolution to remove the deadline is currently stalled in the Senate. It’s future may rest on the results of the midterm elections, as the New York Times warns that Biden’s agenda might become limited if Republicans capture Congress. The results can therefore make a resolution more improbable and the ERA’s publication by the Executive Branch more necessary.

*(When the ERA was originally passed in 1972, it was placed before the state legislatures, with a seven-year time limit to acquire ratification by three-fourths (38) of the state legislatures. The deadline was then extended to 1982.)

About the author: Caitlin Rich is a 2022 fellow in the Sy Syms Journalistic Excellence Program* at Women’s eNews, funded by the Sy Syms Foundation. The Sy Syms Journalistic Excellence Program at Women’s eNews fellowship supports editorial and development opportunities for editorial interns in the pursuit of journalistic excellence.

The Sy Syms Journalistic Excellence Program:

The Sy Syms Journalistic Excellence program at Women’s eNews was launched in 2014 with support from the Sy Syms Foundation. The fellowship provides support and development opportunities for editorial interns in the pursuit of journalistic excellence.

“For a democracy to flourish all voices must be heard.” says Marcy Syms, a founding Trustee and President of the Sy Syms Foundation. “Through its investigative reporting Women’s eNews gets at the essence of good journalism. The Sy Syms Foundation is proud of this collaboration to support today’s newest women journalists.”

As part of its mission to create social change for women and girls through investigative reporting, Women’s eNews helps foster, train, and support the career development of new journalists with a focus on social justice and women’s rights.

AAP, AMA, CHA seek help of US-DoJ to silence dissent from Lobby for Gender Ideology

hesco — Mon, 03 Oct 2022 17:00:00 +0000

AAP, AMA, CHA seek help of US-DoJ to silence dissent from Lobby for Gender Ideology hesco Mon, 10/03/2022 - 13:00

In a press release published by the American Academy of Pediatrics, "Health care organizations urge protection for physicians and patients", (archived-copy), reports on a letter cosigned by the AAP, the American Medical Association and the Children's Hospital Association and sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland (local-copy). The letter conflates the rising criticism of the gender medicine industry with a recent bomb threat at a childrens hospital, in an attempt to paint critics of these protocols as violent extremists demanding the urgent attention of law enforcement.

The gender medicine industry is attracting increasing attention for its life altering protocols and mutilating surgeries performed often on self-diagnosed children and in the name of so-called 'gender-affirming care', following ill-defined protocols being abandoned throughout the world as ethicists and medical practitioners are more closely examining these medical experiments being performed on children and the growing evidence of their long term and adverse iatrogenic effects on patients.

Their release reads in part:

The groups sent a letter (PDF) to Attorney General Merrick Garland urging the Department of Justice to investigate the increasing threats of violence against physicians, hospitals and families of children for providing and seeking evidence-based gender-affirming care. The organizations also call on technology platforms to do more to stop the rhetoric that often incites threats or acts of violence and has led to harassment campaigns across the country, much of it directed at children’s hospitals and the physicians and staff who work there.

. . . the groups call on Twitter, TikTok and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, to do more to prevent coordinated campaigns of disinformation . . .

USA-Today: Remind me why the Biden administration is in court fighting publication of the ERA?

hesco — Sat, 01 Oct 2022 17:00:00 +0000

USA-Today: Remind me why the Biden administration is in court fighting publication of the ERA? hesco Sat, 10/01/2022 - 13:00

Remind me why the Biden administration is in court fighting publication of the ERA?
Carli Pierson, USA TODAY
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2022/10/01/biden-administration-block-era-publication-wrong/10448413002/

The publication of the Equal Rights Amendment is a simple ministerial action and should have happened when Virginia became the 38th state to ratify it in 2020.

A woman holds up a sign as members of Congress and representatives of women's groups rally in 2012 to mark the 40th anniversary of congressional passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. The amendment included what the Congressional Research Service calls a "customary, but not constitutionally mandatory," seven-year deadline for ratification by three-fourths of the states.

Women's rights are not enshrined in the Constitution. The ERA was supposed to change that.
By 2020, the ERA had the 38 ratifications necessary for it to become the 28th Amendment.
Publication of the ERA is a simple action and should have happened when Virginia became the latest state to ratify it.

The Biden administration is in court opposing the Equal Rights Amendment's publication by the National Archives and RecordsAdministration. That's legally and morally wrong.

Women's rights are not enshrined in the Constitution other than in the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. The word "woman" does not even appear once in the document.

The ERA was supposed to change that.

First passed by Congress in 1923, the text of the ERA has shifted over the years, but the 1972 version that was sent to the states says the following:

"Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."

There's no deadline on women's equality: Add the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution

It was no surprise that the Trump administration pushed back against the amendment's publication, but I was shocked to learn that Biden administration lawyers were in court opposing it, too. If President Joe Biden means to support the ERA, like he has said, then he needs to change direction quickly and put the full force of his government's authority behind this critical constitutional amendment, rather than fighting it in court.

What is the ERA?

Drafted by suffragist Alice Paul in the 1920s, the bill didn't move much until the 1970s when it was picked up again during the women’s movement. By 1977, 35 states had approved it. Then, right-wing religious activists worried that this amendment would lead to, God-forbid, "gender-neutral bathrooms, same-sex marriage and women in military combat," according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

Opponents got a [24]deadline for ratification of seven years inserted into the 1972 ERA (Article V of the Constitution makes zero mention of deadlines for amendments). The deadline was extended to 1982, and that date passed without the 38 states needed to publish and issue a new Constitution.

By 2020, three more states had signed on, and the ERA had the 38 ratifications necessary for it to become the 28th Amendment.

Fast-forward to this year: We already have gender-neutral bathrooms, same-sex marriage (at least for now) and women in combat. Now, lawmakers and right-wing organizations are pushing back against the ERA because they worry that, if published, it would again consecrate women's rights to abortion care after they got Roe v. Wade overturned.

Why it matters that ERA should have already published

The publication of the ERA is a simple ministerial action and should have happened when Virginia became the latest state to ratify it in January 2020. But because the Trump administration stepped in to block its enactment into force on the grounds of an arbitrary deadline, the U.S. archivist didn't certify and publish theERA as required by statute.

Now, Biden administration lawyers are actually arguing in court that this nonsensical deadline has passed and that advocates forthe ERA should have to start from square one. Prominent constitutional law scholars disagree.

And publishing the ERA matters a lot. Nicole Bates, executive director of the nonprofit organization Shattering Glass, explained to me why: "Publishing first gives a presumption of validity. It sends a huge message to people that women and LGBTQ+ persons are equal. But it would also serve to shift the burden back to the opponents of the Equal Rights Amendment to initiate a lawsuit challenging it."

Finally, the argument that the ERA is actually a hindrance to women'sand LGBTQ progress has no merit. Cementing a right explicitly in the Constitution is more important than ever. Women's rights and LGBTQ rights are under attack. In order to fulfill an ideological agenda, our highest court has decided to roll back women's rights by reading the Constitution without regard to the Equal Protection Clause or the bedrock principle of [36]stare decisis, requiring courts to abide by precedents laid down as applicable to a similar set of facts.

Biden cannot overturn the Supreme Court's abominable decision reversing Roe, but he can push for publication of an amendment that has already met all the constitutional requirements to become law. It is also something tangible that he could point to as work he has done to help women regain constitutional rights they've enjoyed for almost 50 years and then lost under his watch.

Enough playing politics with our rights. Women need all the constitutional protections they can get, and this one has been a long time coming. The Biden administration must support the Equal Rights Amendment.

Oral Arguments Before US Court of Appeals for District of Columbia, in Illinois et al v David Fierro

hesco — Wed, 28 Sep 2022 17:00:00 +0000

Oral Arguments Before US Court of Appeals for District of Columbia, in Illinois et al v David Fierro hesco Wed, 09/28/2022 - 13:00

State of Illinois v. David Ferriero

Judges: Wilkins, Rao, Childs

Arguing: Jane Elinor Notz for Appelants, Sarah E. Harrington (DOJ for Respondent)

09/28/2022 Case #: 21-5096 * Court's Opinion

The audio recordings of oral arguments for this case have been removed from the web by the Courts. We have a local copy which requires processing before it can be posted here. Journalists researching this issue who need a copy are encouraged to contact the officers of GASBR as describes elsewhere.