RFK Jr. AND ERA REVIVALISTS IGNORE THE COURTS

1/5) In @thedailybeast, @TheLloydGrove reports: "Third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr....has decided to make the [Equal Rights Amendment] a campaign issue."
#ERANow 2/5) @RobertKennedyJr: "The Biden administration should respect the Constitution and publish the [Equal Rights] Amendment in the Federal Register. [If elected president] I will direct the archivist to publish.”
thedailybeast.com/could-this-rfk…

1/4) Former Archivist Don W. Wilson, a historian, puts his name on a work of historical fiction for @WomenseNews and @CABlueBlaze--claims he acted "independently" in certifying Congressional Pay Amendment (CPA) in 1992, and disparages now-retired Archivist
womensenews.org/2022/12/ignori… 2/4)...David Ferriero for deferring to the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) regarding the status of the Equal Rights Amendment in 2020 (thereby subjecting it to "the political whims of" the federal judiciary), rather than following the supposed Wilson "precedent."

1/7) On the floor of the House of Representatives on February 13, 2020, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, "This [the ERA] has nothing to do with the abortion issue." This week arrived yet another proof that Pelosi's statement was utterly false.
#eranow 2/7) On 10-13-21, Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers filed a brief at the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in a lawsuit seeking to invalidate the state law that limits Medicaid funding of abortion to cases of life of the mother, rape, and incest.

NRLC on today's House ERA tally, 222-204: "This was ERA’s poorest showing in the House in 50 years...Today’s tally was 62 votes below the 2/3 margin that the Constitution requires to perform grown-up constitutional amending, as opposed to today’s cheap political theater.”
#eranow

"The Equal Rights Amendment 2021" is a great show. There is a lot happening-- Congress, Executive Branch, federal courts, state legislatures, the media. But where is all this going? Much of what you now see is political theater. To understand this better, we must go back... ERAs have proposed in Congress since 1923. But for many decades, they were unable to surmount the high hurdles found in Article V of the Constitution. Article V succinctly spells out how the Constitution may be amended. To protect the text of the Constitution,

ERA MEDIA WATCH: @USATODAY piece by @mgroppe, "Biden Taking Hands-Off Approach to DOJ Barrier on ERA." Quotes unnamed Administration official saying Biden won't tell DOJ whether to rescind the Jan. 2020 OLC opinion that said the ERA had expired.

usatoday.com/story/news/pol… The Administration official, responding on the condition of anonymity, said Biden remains committed to the ERA, but respects the independence of the Justice Department. An upcoming vote in the U.S. House of Representatives is "the appropriate next step," the official said.

ABORTION AND THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT:
A THREAD

With the U.S. House of Representatives slated to vote on an ERA "deadline removal" measure (H.J.Res. 17) the week of March 15, 2021, it is timely to review one of the main reasons the level of support for
#equalrightsamendment the language of the 1972 ERA has dropped so precipitously in the "People's House"--the house that is apportioned on the basis of population, and in which every member stands for election every 2 years. In 1971, 94% of House members voted for the ERA Resolution (H.J.Res. 208).

Step right up! See the wondrous transformation of the ERA resolution (H.J.Res.17)! Introduced Jan. 21 under Congress's Article V powers, properly crafted by congressional attorneys to require 2/3 vote in each house. But now, in dead of night, in the blink of an eye-- transformed! Here you see the original H.J. Res. 17, as introduced with trumpets Jan. 21, 2021. We invite you to carefully examine the "Resolved" clause-- drafted by congressional staff specialists, initiates in their arcane craft, to properly reflect the Article V requirement for 2/3 votes.

In new CNN piece @VeronicaStrac, sharply contrasting assessments of the 3-5-21 ERA deadline ruling by Judge Rudolph Contreras. CNN says the judge "dealt a blow to advocates of the ERA" by upholding the deadline and rejecting late actions by VA, IL, and NV.
cnn.com/2021/03/06/pol… Douglas Johnson of National Right to Life said Democrats in Congress & state AGs are on "a political-pressure campaign to intimidate the federal courts into permitting them to air-drop the long-expired ERA into the Constitution, [but] a federal judge appointed by President Obama

U.S. House Maj. Leader Hoyer announced the House will take up the ERA "deadline removal" resolution the week of March 15. But, the script for this exercise in political theater contains so many absurdities, some players keep forgetting their lines. We noticed another blunder... House rules require that for every bill, the sponsor must submit a statement citing the constitutional authority for the measure. For the House ERA "deadline removal" resolution, H.J. Res. 17, the cited authority is Article V, the article that governs amending the Constitution.

51, 60, 67?

Later this month, Senate Democrats plan to complain about an anticipated Republican filibuster of S.J. Res. 1, which purports to "remove" the ERA deadline. 60 votes, awful! Yet, the lawyers at Legislative Counsel drafted it to require 2/3 (67, if all senators vote)! How could such an "error" occur? Well, it's not really an error--it was drafting by the book. After all, the resolutions purport to be based on Article V, and Article V always requires 2/3 votes. But the ERA-revival scheme requires the pretense that Congress can

1/16) BREAKING NEWS: A major development in the main ERA ratification case, VIRGINIA v. FERRIERO, filed in Washington, D.C. Federal District Judge Rudolph Contreras (Obama appointee) has GRANTED the motion of Alabama (+LA,NE,SD,TN) to intervene in the case --
#ERA
#ERANow 2/16) i.e, become parties themselves. This is the case in which Virginia, Illinois, and Nevada sued the Archivist, arguing that the 1972 ERA has already been ratified, and that the ratification deadline imposed by Congress was unconstitutional.
#ERA2020
#ERAYes

"The Equal Rights Amendment 2020" is a stage-magic show -- a glitzy production, playing now in the media, Congress, and the courts. The real ERA is 40 years dead. What you see now is a political hologram -- it looks real, but you can walk right thru it. Let's take a closer look! In 1972,the 92nd Congress, by the required 2/3 votes, approved the ERA Resolution (H.J. Res. 208). Like every proposed constitutional amendment since the First Congress, it contained a Proposing Clause--which is not a "preamble," but required under Article V of the Constitution.

The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, which advises the Executive Branch on major legal issues, today issued a 38-page opinion that the 1972 ERA is dead and cannot be resurrected by state legislatures or Congress. Further details will follow here at @ERANoShortcuts. This opinion defines the position of the Executive Branch. It means that the Archivist of the United States may not certify the ERA as part of the Constitution, after Virginia submits "ratification" papers, because there has been no ERA actually before the states since 1979.

A pro-ERA group called "Equal Means Equal" today filed a federal lawsuit arguing that the Constitution does not allow any time limit on ratification of any amendment to the Constitution, nor does it allow any state to rescind its ratification.

news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-re… Of the various theories cooked up to try to re-animate the 40-year-expired 1972 Equal Rights Amendment, this one is the wackiest. Under this theory, there must be endless time to ratify any proposed constitutional amendment, and once a state is "in the bag," it can never escape!

(1/4) The 1972 ERA died unratified 40 years ago-- the claim that it's on the verge of ratification is a political hoax. But, is the Archivist of the U.S. playing along with the hoaxers? This chart was produced with the National Archives, obtained on 11-19-19 thru a FOIA request (2/4) by Douglas Johnson, senior policy advisor to National Right to Life. It lists Nevada (2017) and Illinois (2018) as ratifying states-- just like the 35 states that actually ratified the ERA prior to the immutable 1979 deadline. (The NARA list does take note that five of the