It’s so disappointing for the executive editor of Ms. magazine to mischaracterize what needs to be done for U.S. women to be honored and respected as citizens of equal stature (“ERA and abortion are key to women’s vote,” Nov. 8).
When Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, it should have been added to the Constitution. Congress has no additional role regarding the amendment.
What needs to be done is that the president of the United States needs to pick up the phone and call the federal archivist and tell the archivist to do her ministerial job and publish an updated Constitution.
To quote Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., “The amendment has already been ratified. Congress does not have the power to have external time limits, and in fact, when Virginia became the 38th state to ratify, it became the law of the land, and the Biden administration should publish it” (acslaw.org/video/the-imminent-threat-of-a-constitutional-convention at 55 minutes).
The constant drumbeat of “We need Congress to act” instead of “We need President Joe Biden to pick up the phone” by Ms. magazine and other leading women’s organizations is at the detriment of our democracy, and basically throws women, girls and the LGBTQ community under the bus. The congressional tactic honed by activists has been to signal to the Supreme Court that the legislature is firmly behind the Equal Rights Amendment if it needs to decide a lawsuit by anti-equality advocates.
The two bills in Congress (Senate Joint Resolution 4 and Senate Joint Resolution 39) basically say that ERA is valid. Quite frankly, the mischaracterization by Ms. Spillar regarding the timeline creates confusion and undergirds the notion that there is a timeline issue that gives the government the right to trash the Equal Rights Amendment. Every amendment was published when the last required state ratified, even though there were legal issues to be worked out. The only amendment not published is the one that moves us into a democracy, where we are all equal citizens. The president is not a king. He has no right to block a constitutional amendment.
We do not need Congress to do anything to have courts, the government, the people and the world to receive a Constitution that contains the 28th Amendment — “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”
We need pressure on the president of the United States to follow the law, his oath of office, the Constitution and the will of the people, and pick up the phone, call the archivist and instruct her to do a ministerial task and publish an updated Constitution with the Equal Rights Amendment as the 28th Amendment.
Jean Sweeney
Head of National ERA Publication Task Force
Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at civiltalk@iniusa.org.
