Biden Claims the Equal Rights Amendment is the Law of the Land — But What Does That Mean?
Chairperson Joe Biden announced on Friday, as far as he was concerned, the Equal Rights Amendment was “the law of the land,” a symbolic move to allow more women across the country to sue states them about sexist behavior — including challenges to abortion bans.
The ERA, originally drafted more than a century ago and passed by Congress in 1972, has faced a long and arduous journey toward ratification and enforcement as 28th Amendment into the Constitution. If officially recognized, the ERA will legalize gender equality.
“The Equal Rights Amendment is the law of the land—now!” Biden said in his speech to the US Conference of Mayors. “It is now the 28th amendment to the Constitution.”
While Biden’s announcement is expected to have legal and political consequences nationwide, the president’s announcement is not so straightforward.
Follow up immediately Biden’s announcement on Friday, the National Archives, which publishes constitutional amendments, said it had no plans to formally add the ERA to the Constitution. When Congress passed the ERA more than 50 years ago, the original preamble required 38 states to ratify within seven years (that deadline was extended to 1982). That year, the amendment was three states short of implementation.
Thanks to their anti-abortion stance, anti-feminist activists such as Phyllis SchlaflyThe ERA has been crushed. Not until 2020, Virginia has become 38th most important state to ratify the ERA. However, because the deadline has long passed and Thank ARRIVE Donald TrumpThe Justice Department said at the time that ratification took so long, the ERA remained outside its founding document — even though about 8 in 10 adults in the United States, including a majority of men and women, women, as well as Republicans and Democrats, say they at least somewhat support adding the ERA to the Constitution, according to to Pew.
United States Archivist Colleen ShoganBiden’s appointee and first woman archivist, has repeatedly declared that the ERA’s status is over and cannot be added to the Constitution now unless Congress acts. Last month, Shogan and the deputy archivist launched one declare said it could not certify the ERA “due to established legal, judicial and procedural decisions.” On Friday, the Archives reiterated its position. “The underlying legal and procedural issues remain unchanged,” they said in a statement. declare. The White House told reporters that Biden also would not order the archives to certify and publish the ERA.
Biden’s Friday announcement on the ERA comes as the president is filling his final moments in office with sweeping executive measures, including designating national monuments in California, excluding Cuba from list of state sponsors of terrorism, stopped a Japanese company’s takeover of United States Steel, expanded protected status to nearly 1 million immigrants and commuted the sentences of almost everyone sentenced to death federal, as well detail via Washington Post this week.
