Does it matter at this point? Are the potential negatives worth consideration or maybe more important than the original intent? It it an anachronism of our binary-gendered past?
Will all the battleground be about process instead of the intent or implications?
The vague, poorly written language of the ERA does not allow any distinction to be made between men and women – even when it makes sense to do so based on their 1. biological differences.
The ERA would be used to overturn all restrictions on abortion (including the partial birth abortion ban, 3rd-trimester abortion ban and parental notice of minors seeking an abortion).
The ERA would be used to mandate taxpayer funding of elective Medicaid abortions.
The ERA would overturn laws and practices that benefit women because they would be viewed as showing preferential treatment to women.
ERA would impact theprivacy and safety of women and girls by removing gender designations for bathrooms, locker rooms, jails and hospital rooms.
The ERA will not give women any more rights than they currently have .
ERA won’t erase the gender wage gap.
The ERA would also transfer large amounts of legislative power from the states to Congress creating a greater imbalance of power and placing sensitive issues under the less responsive federal government .
It’s clear that ERA sponsors intended for the ERA to overturn all restrictions on abortion.
The accepted time limit for ratification of Constitutional amendments is 7 years. ERA failed in 1979. Five states voted to rescind their earlier approval of ERA. Any vote for ERA today is null and void…
It’s taken me a long time to find a succinct phrase but i think i’ve finally got the gist of one. Without thinking hard about the language, basically, men oppose laws and language giving equality and freedom for women for the same reason they oppose it for their children.
But if the ERA amendment actually just passed, watch Republicans try to ignore it into irrelevance.
If anything, there will be a massive court fight over whether it has been ratified or not. Virginia is the 38th state to ratify, but 5 states claim they revoked / rescinded their ratification. It’s an open question whether you can revoke such ratification. Remember, to get rid of the 18th Amendment required another amendment, not just the revocation of ratification by some states.
Also, the ratification deadline set by Congress has passed, long ago. Again, it’s an open question whether such a deadline has any force of law.
I don’t think any court has ever ruled on either question. I don’t imagine that conservative courts will be anxious to be on the side of ratification.
Didn’t West Wing have a good argument against the ERA.
To paraphrase -
‘To make a law would to to assume that up until this point women were not equal to men and starts from the assumption that will never be case without an amendment stating it. After all, there isn’t an amendment that say men are equal to women. Men are just assumed to equal.’
At least that was the gist of it. Obviously, this countered by something, because it’s West Wing, but I don’t recall what it is at the moment.
Anyway, it was a most interesting argument.
Here it is.
Not making any claims about it being right or wrong. I just like the writting.
Ainsley Hayes was the designated conservative character on the show. And I think that’s a bad argument. I wouldn’t say that the Voting Rights Act of 1964 was a bad law because it served as an admission that the voting rights of some people were being violated. They were being violated! And women are being discriminated against, every day. The point of the amendment is not to say they are equal, but to make the discrimination unconstitutional.
Worth pointing out that she was the sort of RINO principled conservative played also by Alan Alda and William Fitchner on that show–the kind of conservative who exist in real life in such small numbers that they can all sit at a single table at the White House Press Correspondents dinner.
You know, I agree that states rights were rolled over a little too easily with inevitable consequences, both in the US and the EU. But when the rationale for conservative change is always and only to keep the right to trample other people with impunity, I really just wish someone would punch them in the face.
I don’t really see how the courts will ignore 1) acts of Congress that ended the ratification period long ago, and 2) states that rescinded ratification in the interim. I’m a fan of the ERA, but I don’t think it gets ratified this way.
I mean, I think even a liberal court rules it has not been ratified.
The one thing that should be ruled on is procedural i think. It’s an extremely bad - if entirely predictable precedent - that the GOP simply ignores the tangled issue of ratification as if nothing has happened, because nobody (Fox) is talking about it, because they think if they just ignore it it goes away.
I don’t think it’s very tangled at all. The law itself put an expiration date on ratification, and we’re long past it. If anything, it’s Dems who are playing “see no evil/hear to evil” by continuing to prop up a dead process.
That’s one of the questions. The other is, does a rescinded state ratification count as a ratification? Does the state have the power to change its mind before an amendment is ratified? If not, why not?
Edit: To your question, though, the Constitution gives Congress the power to enact legislation to propose amendments, and that power is not limited by the text of the Constitution, so what is the argument that Congress lacks the power to include or add a ratification time limit?
Yes. It doesn’t lay any groundwork beyond “don’t fuck with the Senate” and how many states need to sign on really.
“The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress; Provided that no Amendment which may be made prior to the Year One thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any Manner affect the first and fourth Clauses in the Ninth Section of the first Article; and that no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate.”
Article V does not specify anything beyond the ways in which amendments can be ratified, and what can’t be amended (namely, the bits about banning importation of slaves after 1808 and the equal representation of each state in the Senate). Until the 1992 ratification of the 27th Amendment, after 202 years (!), it was according to this Cornell Law site, accepted that Congress could put time limits on amendments, and nearly all since the 18th have had a seven-year limit.Indeed, it was accepted that a time limit was normal, but the 1992 ratification turned that on its head. The ERA caused renewed discussion over the extension, by Congress, of the seven year deadline. But in general, the answer is “it depends,” as one’s view on how strictly to interpret Article V pretty much determines where one stands. In practical terms, though, general practice has been to have time limits in the modern era.
