U.S. House removes ERA ratification deadline, one obstacle to enactment

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Washington Post




The U.S. House of Representatives gave the Equal Rights Amendment a temporary new lease on life Thursday by voting to remove a 1982 deadline for ratification by the states. The vote on a resolution introduced by Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) pushes the issue to the Senate, where Sens. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) have introduced a similar measure.

During debate on the House floor, Republicans leaned on anti-abortion and constitutional arguments to oppose the ERA, arguing that enshrining protections for women in the Constitution would mean abortion could not be restricted. Democrats focused on the legality of deadlines and the importance of equal rights.

“This has nothing to do woth the abortion issue. That is an excuse, not a reason,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), arguing that women are still paid less than men for similar work, and often are shorted on pensions and pregnancy leaves. She and some of the other female lawmakers wore purple to visually express their support for the long-sought constitutional amendment, first proposed nearly a century ago. But it will take more than color coordination to enact the ERA.

Three-quarters of the states must ratify a proposed amendment for it to be added to the Constitution. With new Democratic majorities in both chambers, the Virginia General Assembly last month met that threshold, becoming the 38th state to ratify the ERA. Supporters of the amendment say the deadline Congress imposed can be changed by a simple vote of the same body, since there is no ratification deadline specified in the Constitution itself. Others disagree.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/us-house-removes-era-ratification-deadline-one-obstacle-to-enactment/2020/02/13/e82aa802-4de5-11ea-b721-9f4cdc90bc1c_story.html

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One step at a time although this is going to be a slog.

[beachbumbob]

1. as if GOP is going to vote on this in the Senate in the affirmative.

[customerserviceguy]

8. Or Trump will sign it

Or the SCOTUS will say that Congress has the power to change a ratification deadline after it has been ratified by the states.

[Retrograde]

15. I don't think Trump gets a say

Amendments must be ratified by 2/3 of the House and Senate, and 3/4 of the states.

The Supreme Court, OTOH - I can see them ruling that this is changing the amendment and it must be re-ratified.

[customerserviceguy]

20. The Joint Resolution

extending the original deadline for ERA ratification was passed by simple majority in both houses of Congress and signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1978.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_Rights_Amendment

Is this country incapable of passing a new ERA nearly fifty years after the first one met the necessary thresholds in Congress?

[maxsolomon]

24. Yes, as currently constituted, a new ERA would not pass.

The GOP is more powerful than it was when it originally passed, and far more intransigent.

[FBaggins]

2. But did it?

The original joint resolution included both the text of the amendment and the deadline for ratification and received a 2/3 vote in both chambers of Congress. I'm not sure that a simple majority vote would be sufficient to extend the deadline (even if the Senate were to follow and deadline extensions were possible at all after the original expires (neither of which is a sure thing).

“This has nothing to do with the abortion issue. That is an excuse, not a reason,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)

True enough... but it also likely has nothing to do with actually ratifying the ERA. It's really just an attempt to add another election issue for the fall.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. The FAQ at Equal Rights Amendment.org

notes that the 27th Amendment, that had been approved by Congress 2 centuries ago and was finally enacted 200+ years later in 1992 after ignoring any assumed deadline. They also cited other various and sundry machinations about ratifications of other Amendments (like the 14th & 15th) with respect to sudden rescissions of some state ratifications being eventually declared invalid, and those states were still included as part of the final inclusion of those Amendments into the Constitution.

https://www.equalrightsamendment.org/faq

So basically over the years, there have been quite a few wink winks with respect to deadlines, extensions, and ratification recission invalidity, which have been used for justification to continue to move forward with getting ERA included.

[FBaggins]

5. The 27th didn't include a ratification deadline

ERA did. The website is being intentionally deceptive.

For instance - The time limit on ERA ratification is open to change, as Congress demonstrated in extending the original deadline,

This has by no means been established. In fact, a court had ruled just the opposite when the issue became moot (because the supposed extension had also expired). A purported extension that gets voted on after the time limit has expired is even more questionable than the one that was under review.

It's also worth noting that RBG has recently commented on the issue in a way that not only rejects this spin... but implies that she doesn't consider it an actual question that might come before the court (or she would have kept her mouth shut).

[customerserviceguy]

9. Yes

and even RBG says that the deadline has passed. If she's not on board with an attempted extension of the deadline, it's not going to happen.

Another ERA needs to be drawn up and passed by Congress, then re-submitted to the states. RBG called exactly for that.

[cstanleytech]

13. Except the Constitution doesn't have any specified deadlines so going strictly by the Constitution

as so many Republicans claim they go by as soon as enough States vote Yes it becomes an amendment.
Even the states that later voted yes but later voted no don't have standing as going strictly by the Constitution there is no way to do a take back for a vote to pass an amendment.
Now later on they can propose their own amendment to essentially cancel it out but that's all they can do according to the Constitution.
In other words it's time for us to use the Constitution like a club against the Republicans and beat them over the head repeatedly like they love to do to us when it comes to things like gun control.

[customerserviceguy]

18. True

the Constitution is silent on deadlines in amendments, but it is silent on what an amendment can contain. The only exception to that principle involves changing representation in the Senate, if anything other than Article One, Section Three, Clause One "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State..." Article Five states "no State, without its Consent, shall be deprived of its equal Suffrage in the Senate."

That would essentially require 100% consent of all of the states to give California three Senators. Wyoming's not going to go along with that, because it's equal suffrage in the Senate would be affected.

There's a legal principle that provides that laws are not able to be separated into parts, if one part of the law is found unconstitutional, the whole thing is thrown out, unless something known as "severability" is enacted into the law. You'd be asking the SCOTUS to throw that out the window if they were asked to rule in favor of the ERA with late ratifications, and RBG publicly said she's not going there.

[BumRushDaShow]

11. Well now I like RBG but like everyone else, she's just one opinion, no more or less than any other

I think many have said that much that of this is subject to legal interpretation, the sense of the country (through Congress), and is mostly academic... but again it points out all the twisting and convolution that have gone on with the passage of previous Amendments in the past.

[FBaggins]

16. Oh... I think we have to agree that she's more relevant than most other single opinions

The question was already before SCOTUS before the prior deadline expired. If the most progressive justice doesn't even think it's coming to them... then it's dead.

Other than a rhetorical device for candidates to express support for women in general... it sounds like the process needs to start over if the ERA is to become part of the Constitution

[BumRushDaShow]

19. With the exteme partisanship and return to the acceptance of rampant misogyny going on today

"starting over" would lead nowhere.

[PoliticAverse]

10. "enacted 200+ years later in 1992 after ignoring any assumed deadline" - there was no...

"assumed deadline" when the 27th Amendment was passed by congress.

[BumRushDaShow]

14. There were actual arguments by those opposed to it that

indicated that the passage of time had been too long and they should have started all over.

If you research a bit, there was supposedly a college student who became a 1-man advocate for passage of that 27th Amendment declaring it "live", and he was generally dismissed... Meaning at the time (and all those years prior), those who could have actually moved it along to completion, had considered it null and void - until a rash of Congressional pay raise enactments began to hit the news.

And as a note, Congress can declare whatever they want when they want including "Stopping the clock" (one of the Riddick's Rules).

[Igel]

22. But the argument was on different grounds.

And isn't relevant here.

One argument was built on assumption and won because the assumption was just that--an ungrounded assumption.

The other argument is built on the text that came with the amendment's birth.

[cstanleytech]

25. Any text limiting the time for a proposed amendment is void as the Constitution only species that

X number of states have to vote to ratify it however the Constitution does not give Congress the power to impose a time limit.
If they want that power though they need to write another Amendment granting them the power to do so.
Same thing for the states that voted yes to it but then later on once they came under Republican control they voted no as there is no take back within the Constitution once a State says yes so those states need to try and hold another constitutional convention or get Congress to propose another amendment nullifying the ERA entirely and if they want to try that then I welcome them at touching that third rail.

[Dennis Donovan]

3. Rep Spanberger: Equality should have no expiration date.

Link to tweet

[Nitram]

6. Yay!

[Polybius]

7. This will head to the Supreme Court

Ruth Bader Ginsburg already thinks it's expired and has to start over again. Plus the rescinded states. I don't see how this gets ratified.

[BadgerMom]

12. Great! K & R

[tiredtoo]

17. Still hanging on

about all we can do at this time.

[riversedge]

21. #WomensRights are #EqualRights

[ripcord]

23. Actually there is more than one obstacle

You also have to consider the fact that four states have rescinded their ratification.