Keeping women’s mistreatment in the headlines
It may be a stunt, but one with a point (New York Times):
Democrats in Congress are making a fresh push for the nearly century-old Equal Rights Amendment to be enshrined in the Constitution, rallying around a creative legal theory in a bid to revive an amendment that would explicitly guarantee sex equality as a way to protect reproductive rights in post-Roe America.
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Representative Cori Bush of Missouri are set to introduce a joint resolution on Thursday stating that the measure has already been ratified and is enforceable as the 28th Amendment to the Constitution. The resolution states that the national archivist, who is responsible for the certification and publication of constitutional amendments, must immediately do so.
[…]
“In light of Dobbs, we’re seeing vast discrimination across the country,” Ms. Gillibrand said in an interview. “Women are being treated as second-class citizens. This is more timely than ever.”
If the GOP can conduct sham investigations into Hunter Biden and the FBI for their frothing base, why shouldn’t Democrats remind half the population that the authoritarian right considers them no more than birthing vessels?
The measure is unlikely to garner the 60 votes necessary to advance in the Senate, but could remind the almost “80 percent of Americans” who support the Equal Rights Amendment which party is and is not on their side. Senate Republicans in April blocked a different Democratic attempt to extend the expiration date for ratification.
Given enough oxygen by the press, of course. That’s the problem. The press falls all over itself to cover GOP clown shows from the likes of Jim Jordan and Marjorie Taylor Greene while yawning at Democrats’ attempts at, you know, governing.
At issue is the complex procedure for adding an amendment to the Constitution, which requires passage by both houses of Congress and ratification by three-quarters of the states, in this case, within a seven-year deadline. Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment in 1972, and subsequently enacted a law extending that deadline to 10 years. But by 1982, only 35 states had ratified. Since then, three more states — Nevada, Illinois and Virginia — have ratified the amendment, surpassing the threshold, but some others have rescinded their ratifications.
That has left the amendment in a legal and political limbo, its fate left in the hands of Congress and the courts.
Russ Feingold, the former Wisconsin senator who serves as president of the American Constitution Society, said he supported the Democrats’ new strategy.
“For the institution that actually put this limitation of the deadline on to say, ‘Actually, it doesn’t matter’ really is significant,” Mr. Feingold said. “The White House and members of Congress are beginning to see that credible legal scholars are saying this is already part of the Constitution.”
Since the reference to the deadline is in the amendment’s preamble, not the text itself, Gillibrand now argues, “President Biden can just do this. I’m going to make the legal and political argument over the next several months that this is something he can do.”
Whatever she/they do, it had best be splashy or the press will dismiss the effort as another boring, inside-the-Beltway process issue.
Bush contends that the amendment’s core “is packed with potential to protect access to abortion care nationwide, defeat bans on gender-affirming health care, shore up marriage equality, eliminate the gender wage gap, help end the epidemic of violence against women and girls, and so much more.”
Make it an issue. And don’t let up.