In January, I will turn 42 years old. In that time, there have been a lot of changes in the world -- the USSR fell, the Berlin Wall came down, 9/11 changed the trajectory of the world, and the rise of technology (along with social media) has put the world at my fingertips. I've been married, had three kids, got divorced, and buried more loved ones than I care to recount.
The point of that is this: I have lived an entire lifetime since the deadline for states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) passed in 1982.
Because the legislation, sent to the states for ratification in 1972, was sent with a deadline. Why? I don't know. But it was. The original deadline was 1979, and extended to 1982.
And 1982 came and went without the requisite 38 states ratifying the ERA. It is a dead constitutional amendment.
Or was.
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As President Joe Biden nears his much-needed exit from the White House, pressure is growing to have the doddering commander-in-chief to direct the national archivist to publish the ERA. Why? Well, Virginia ratified it in 2020, giving proponents of the amendment the 38th state needed to ratify it. The archivist and deputy archivist -- to their credit -- have issued a joint statement saying they won't do this, because they have a duty to the Constitution and the law.
Kirsten Gillibrand, the Democrat senator from New York, has been the most vocal about Biden putting the ERA into law.
He can't do that. That's what dictators do and Gillibrand knows this.
She also thinks Donald Trump is a dangerous, authoritarian fascist of course. But it's (D)ifferent when she does it.
But no one can tell Gillibrand how the Constitution works, apparently, because she attacked the archivist for failing to 'legally certify' the ERA.
Earlier today, the national archivist preemptively stated that she would not legally certify the Equal Rights Amendment as part of the Constitution.
— Kirsten Gillibrand (@SenGillibrand) December 18, 2024
By taking this unprecedented step, she is wrongfully inserting herself into a clear constitutional process, though her role is…
The absolute nerve of this woman to attack the archivist for doing her job.
You might ask yourself why there's the sudden push for the ERA? Well, this writer thinks they'd use the ERA as a backdoor way to codify abortion rights at the national level.
It's also ironic as hell that the party that won't define what a woman is has become so gung ho about equal rights for women as the sun sets on the Biden administration.
But those are topics for another column.
This isn't the first time Democrats have tried shady tricks to pass this legislation instead of, you know, legislating.
Back in April 2023, my fellow Twitchy writer Aaron wrote about how the Democrats tried to say the ERA was already ratified. It wasn't. Here's some of what Aaron wrote at the time:
One way to add amendments to the Constitution is to have two-thirds of Congress propose an amendment, and then seek ratification in the states. If that proposal is ratified by three quarters of the states, then it becomes part of the Constitution.
That brings us to yesterday, when the Democrats in the Senate attempted a truly dastardly end-run around the amendment process. They tried to say it was already properly ratified, even though it wasn’t. Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana (R) explained why he voted against this (by voting to keep a filibuster going)
And he continues (emphasis added):
But in 2020, Virginia purported to become the thirty-eighth state to ratify it, even though that is well past the deadline—one of three states to attempt to ratify it after the deadline had passed. Furthermore, some states that did ratify the amendment on time have purported to rescind their ratification. So, what did advocates of the ERA do? Well, they attempted to ignore all of that, proposing a resolution during this Congress that said:
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That notwithstanding any time limit contained in House Joint Resolution 208, 92nd Congress, as agreed to in the Senate on March 22, 1972, the article of amendment proposed to the States in that joint resolution is valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution, having been ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States.
In short, they wanted to cheat and pretend that the initial time limit didn’t matter and make the ERA the Twenty-Eighth amendment to the Constitution. Wheeeee!!!
Jesus wept.
My mind absolutely reels at the way the Democratic Party ignores the rule of law and the Constitutional process when it serves their agendas.
The last time I saw something this brazenly unconstitutional from the Democrats was when they refused to try the impeachment of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in the Senate. The Constitution is crystal clear on the impeachment process and Chuck Schumer didn't care.
Nor does Gillibrand.
Like the impeachment process, the Constitution is incontrovertible on the Amendment process in Article V:
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.
Yet, this year alone the Democrats have intentionally and explicitly ignored the Constitution to advance their agenda.
Even Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a vocal advocate for the ERA, said the amendment passed in 1972 expired, and the only way to get it was to start over.
So why hasn't Gillibrand -- who has been a member of the House from 2007 to 2009 and the Senate from 2009 to the present day -- brought the ERA back to the floor for debate and a vote?
Democrats had control of the White House and/or both chambers of Congress during the following years:
- 1979-1981
- 1987-1989
- 1989-1991
- 1991-1993
- 1993-1995
- 2007-2009
- 2009-2011
- 2021-2023 (with Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking vote)
(Because the ERA is an amendment and not a law, the president is superfluous to the amendment process, but can gin up support for amendments).
So three during her tenure as Senator, Gillibrand's party ran all or most of the federal government. Not once did Gillibrand reintroduce the ERA and begin the amendment process over again.
She failed to do her job as a legislator and now she wants Joe Biden to unilaterally amend the Constitution (a move SCOTUS would surely smackdown, anyway).
But tell me more about how Donald Trump is a threat to the democracy, norms, and the Constitution.
