New in PJ Media:
Remember the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)? It’s back, and Old Joe Biden, trying to do as much damage to the nation as he can before he slouches off to his taxpayer-funded Delaware beach house for good on Monday, now says that it’s the law of the land. What’s that? You didn’t notice that we suddenly have a new Constitutional amendment? Well, we may not, but on Friday, Old Joe’s joyful announcement that the amendment was a done deal added an eggbeater to already troubled waters.
The ERA was a central preoccupation of the 1970s when the outgoing figurehead was just beginning his storied career as a leftist prevaricator, character assassin (see Clarence Thomas for details), and premier corruptocrat in the United States Senate. Feminists bombarded Americans with propaganda slogans including “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle” and “A woman’s place is in the House… and the Senate.”
But when Congress approved the ERA on March 22, 1972, it set a deadline of seven years for the necessary three-fourths of the states to approve it. That deadline came and went on March 22, 1979, with only 35 states approving of the amendment. Thirty-eight were needed, so that was that. In 2017, however, as the #MeToo movement was cresting, Nevada became the 36th state to approve the ERA, with Illinois following in 2018 and Virginia in 2020.
So the amendment was over the line, with just one problem: the seven-year deadline had passed over forty years before Virginia ratified the thing. Even before Virginia ratified the ERA, Alabama, Louisiana, and South Dakota tried to head off its post-deadline passage, filing a federal lawsuit in 2019 to stop any other states from ratifying the amendment.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, demonstrating an admirable and rare degree of common sense, explained: “The people had seven years to consider the ERA, and they rejected it. To sneak it into the Constitution through this illegal process would undermine the very basis for our constitutional order.”
But when the man who sicced the corrupt and politicized justice system on his principal political opponent hears about something that would undermine our constitutional order, all he says is, Hold my beer. And so on Friday, Old Joe issued a statement:
On January 27, 2020, the Commonwealth of Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. The American Bar Association (ABA) has recognized that the Equal Rights Amendment has cleared all necessary hurdles to be formally added to the Constitution as the 28th Amendment. I agree with the ABA and with leading legal constitutional scholars that the Equal Rights Amendment has become part of our Constitution.
Well, of course, you do, Joe, but it ain’t necessarily so. The president of the United States, even one as arrogant, self-righteous, and authoritarian as Old Joe, cannot simply declare that something has become part of the Constitution. The validity of the post-deadline ratifications still has to be hashed out.
There is more. Read the rest here.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
When they say that 3/4 of all states are needed to ratify it, does that mean that it’s open-ended? What if any of the states that previously ratified it had, over the last 40 years, second thoughts and wanted to withdraw its endorsement of the amendment? On what basis are they assuming that all the states that ratified it back in the day still support the idea? More importantly, has that ever been constitutionally tested?
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Actually, from the 35 states that originally ratified the ERA, 5 of them revoked their support, so going by that, even if the original voting states are still taken as standing, the ERA would only have 33 votes
WPM says
Joe will claiming all kinds of things to be” true” the law of the land the next 48 hours .Will he be handed a list of people he will have to pardon on Sunday morning given a mixed dose attention enhancing drugs mixed with uppers and start reading .He will mumble on for about 3 hours wobble off stage take no questions be give a big bowl of ice cream and fall asleep for the next 16 hours .Will he do this from his Delaware hidey hole or the fake Whitehouse studio ,who really cares .This walking talking Ghost of America could not be shown the door soon enough.
Troybeam says
Going to do as much damage and false information to the public before the 20th, thank goodness President Trump will cancel everything he has done to America in the last 4 years. At least by doing this it will make America better, actually better that Biden’s build back better BS.
somehistory says
The lady who heads the National Archives has said, ‘no, it passed the deadline, and it isn’t an amendment.’
biden wants it to be like the corrupt da in NY….no statute of limitation or deadlines matter if they don’t want them to matter.
When the shoe is on the other foot, if they can tell a citizen it’s too late to file a complaint, or it’s past the deadline for the citizen to get what was agreed upon, then deadlines and statutes are applied aggressively.
John Pepple says
Just think of how Democrats would be screaming if Republicans tried something like this.
WPM says
Jill Biden will set up another fake oval office in her Delaware basement home so Joe can play and think he is still president the rest of his days. He can proclaim all kinds of things ,he can proclaim he has found a cure for cancer ,he has made the world more peaceful ,that prices have drop on food ,all from the safety of his basement. They can hire some people to pose as news reporters that ask him question as he wobbles away. They can set up fake news cameras and give him fake news briefs .Even make cutout cardboard life size pictures of people in his past administration and move them around with voice overs he would not know the difference.
somehistory says
“JONATHAN TURLEY: President Biden sees dead amendments”
“President Joe Biden wants people to know that he sees dead amendments. Just before leaving office, Biden declared that we have a 28th Amendment, despite the fact that the measure died in the ratification process years ago.
Not since the movie “Sixth Sense” has there been a more creepy moment. To paraphrase Cole Sear in the film, Biden does not see failed amendments in constitutional coffins but “Walking around like regular [amendments]. They don’t know they’re dead.” Neither does Biden.”
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/jonathan-turley-president-biden-sees-dead-amendments/ar-AA1xqJx9?ocid=msedgntp&pc=HCTS&cvid=5d4222f144b64a7ca44f632771f64d8f&ei=50