Biden: Hey, We Have a New Constitutional Amendment! National Archivist: Not So Fast.

New in PJ Media:

Old Joe Biden showed us his autocratic side again on Friday, but his gambit has been swiftly exposed.

I wrote here about how Old Joe Biden had suddenly decided that we had a 28th Amendment to the Constitution and was proclaiming it to be “the law of the land.” Old Joe was trying to breathe some life into the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), a platform-shoed, bell-bottomed relic of the 1970s that angry feminists tried to resurrect in the late 2010s, as part of the now-moribund #MeToo movement.

In that article, I suggested that Old Joe was dredging up this piece of failed legislation as a weapon against Pete Hegseth (who opposes placing women in combat) and as a sop to the trans movement. Since then, it has become clear that he was pandering to other groups as well. Constitutional scholars, however, are refusing to play along.

Old Joe noted that the requisite 38th state had ratified the amendment in 2020. The catch was that the deadline for getting 38 states on board was 1979, so the harridans and shrews pushing the ERA were only 41 years too late. Apparently seeing Biden’s statement coming, archivist of the United States Dr. Colleen Shogan and Deputy Archivist William J. Bosanko stated in December: “At this time, the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) cannot be certified as part of the Constitution due to established legal, judicial, and procedural decisions. In 2020 and again in 2022, the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice affirmed that the ratification deadline established by Congress for the ERA is valid and enforceable.”

Heedless of this fact, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-Planned Parenthood) rejoiced on Friday:

President Biden just declared that the Equal Rights Amendment is now a valid part of the Constitution, and should be considered the law of the land. This is an incredible moment for reproductive freedom, and a historic day for equality – especially with Americans facing the further degradation of reproductive freedom as the incoming administration takes power. Now, women living in states with restrictions on their reproductive freedoms can – and should – file suits to overturn these unconstitutional laws that discriminate on the basis of sex. I know they will have ample support as they seek justice, and I promise to stand by their side in this fight.

Ah, so that’s what it’s all about: the babies must be killed, the sacrifices to Moloch must be made. That so often seems to be the overriding imperative for leftists, but in this case, Old Joe’s attempt to drag the ERA over the goal line appears doomed to failure.

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