Posted on 11/07/2019 4:23:39 AM PST by david1292
The deadline is in the preamble of the amendment and has never been constitutionally tested.
Like I said, Supreme Court.
There are so many problems with the story one knows where to begin.
“Women finally included in the Constitution”—I guess the 19th Amendment doesn’t count.
“Constitutional amendments typically have no deadline”, except most 20th-century ones do. The 27th is a bit of a fluke. Congress could have challenged it—it has to do with their pay—but chose not to for political reasons.
And then there’s the deadline problem. As originally introduced, there was a 7-year time limit as part of the Congressional approval of the proposed amendment. Congress then extended the time limit to ten years—but with only a simple majority, not the 2/3rds majority required of Amendments.
Five states have voted to rescind their ratification. Unlike the Ohio case cited, those rescindings are enough to stop the ERA.
But as many have said, democrats feel as if they do not have to follow rules, and that inconvenient words in documents like “seven years” or “shall not be infringed” can be ignored.
A lot of leftists and feminists react to a comment made by Scalia like 10-15 years ago that the constitution does not say anything about gender equality. So the feminists increased their efforts to get an ERA passed after that.
But like I said, this is about reigniting that debate. And Democrats feel it’s a winner with women....especially in an election year.
A case made its way to a federal district court. The court ruled that Congress could not extend the deadline in that manner. The proper method would have been for Congress to resubmit the amendment with a new ratification window using the two thirds rule in Article V. But there was no possibility of that happening because the Congress of that time did not have the votes to resubmit it. Appeals to higher federal courts were denied.
The court also ruled that ratification was an up-or-down act that could be executed only once. Therefore, the rescissions of the ERA were invalid. The higher federal courts did not wish to address this issue either.
Bottom line: The ERA died in 1979 and cannot be revived unless both Houses of Congress are willing to resubmit it to the states for ratification by a two thirds vote in each House.
If the Virginia Legislature ratifies, the Secretary of State of Virginia will submit a Letter of Ratification to the Archivist of the United States. The Archivist will return the letter to the Virginia Secretary of State with a copy of the court ruling, explaining that Virginia's ratification is null and void.
Case closed.
Who (outside of prison) has fewer rights than anyone else? Total BS.
Several 20th-century amendments had a provision that they would be inoperative unless ratified by three-quarters of the states within 7 years from the date of submission to the states by Congress (18th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd). In each of these it was one of the sections of the amendment, not a preamble.
Fair comment, but in my opinion, given how far that Left the Democrats now are, and hence how dangerous they are, we’re at the point in this country where if the candidate has an “R” next to his name, corrupt or not, scandal or not, we have to vote for the guy in November (assuming he makes it that far). And given what we see with Trump, I also wouldn’t trust the media to tell me whether someone is corrupt or scandal-prone.
The ONLY exception I’d consider would be for someone like David Duke, and even then I’d consider the alternatives to him losing before deciding.
Well better be ready for a fight because the Democrats are going to take this to the Supreme Court. You can bet on it.
And if it comes down to John Roberts...he can twist the law to fit whatever he wants. So who knows what will happen.
All this hysteria generated by CNN is a waste of time. If the Virginia Legislature sues in federal court over the Archivist of the United States' refusing to recognize the Letter of Ratification, the federal courts will refer to the original decision, and the Supreme Court will refuse to hear the case. A decision by any court to accept the Letter of Ratification would overturn the 1921's Dillon v. Gloss, and that would create constitutional chaos, something the courts do not want.
The ERA is dead and has been dead for 40 years. It's over.
Then why are the Dems doing this? Why pass the amendment in VA if it is a waste of time? Why do they have a legion of lawyers ready to file lawsuits?
And it’s not just CNN, this is all over the place.
It's called "virtue signaling."
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