Saturday setback

Yeah, you can count on it – whenever there is an election that isn’t a Democratic landslide, we hear the predictable calls to eliminate the Electoral College, ‘cuz it isn’t working for our democracy. Go find that word in the Constitution. We’ll wait (at least till you leave the room, and then we’ll talk about what a maroon you are – because it ain’t there.) We have a republic – it may go by various names but whatever you may call our representative government it is not, and was intentionally designed NOT to be, a pluralistic majority-rules democracy. Almost 250 years on, it seems the Democrats just can’t understand that, and whine about how the Electoral College “disenfranchises” voters. (Actually, it’s states who have enacted “winner-take-all” elections who disenfranchise voters – for example, why vote for a Republican Presidential candidate if you live in Illinois. Even without the dead voters, your vote counts for exactly nothing – because of winner take all.) OK, rant over.

But a near and dear second place goes to – drum roll – the Equal Rights Amendment. They want it so badly, because just as they Roe v. Waded abortion as a back-door offshoot of the right to privacy (come to think of it, where is THAT enumerated in the Constitution?) they can super-glue all kinds of weirdness onto the ERA. If women have equal rights, then people who think they are woman are sacrosanct. For all I know, even furries and pedophiles would be covered, right? Well, they can’t have it.

Back in the days of bra-burning (okay, a protest I could get behind) and ’70s feminism, the ERA was passed in (Democrat controlled, both before and after the ’72 election Wiki)  1972 Congress and sent out to the states for ratification. 38 states had 7 years, per act  of Congress to ratify, other wise the ERA just lapsed and died.

The five-decade push to amend the Constitution to prohibit discrimination based on sex remains stalled. Congress sent the amendment, which guarantees men and women equal rights under the law, to the states in 1972 and gave states seven years to ratify it, later extending the deadline to 1982. But the amendment wasn’t ratified by the required three-quarters of states before the deadline.

Four years ago, however, Virginia lawmakers voted to ratify the amendment, becoming the 38th and final state needed — albeit nearly four decades after the congressionally mandated deadline for ratification.

More than 120 House Democrats, led by Reps. Cori Bush and Ayanna Pressley, called on Biden on Sunday to direct the archivist to certify and publish the amendment despite the missed deadline.

“Solidifying your legacy on equal rights with a final action on the ERA would be a defining moment for the historic Biden-Harris administration and your presidency,” they wrote to Biden.  AP Politics

Poor dears…ignore there was a deadline, forget the rules – c’mon Joe, just DO it. Two flies in the ointment:

But the archivist, Colleen Shogan, and her deputy, William J. Bosanko, who are responsible for certifying and publishing new amendments once they meet the required ratification threshold, say neither they nor Biden can act without Congress or the courts lifting the deadline.

“In 2020 and again in 2022, the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice affirmed that the ratification deadline established by Congress for the ERA is valid and enforceable,” they said in a joint statement. “The OLC concluded that extending or removing the deadline requires new action by Congress or the courts. Court decisions at both the District and Circuit levels have affirmed that the ratification deadlines established by Congress for the ERA are valid.”

Think Congress can unite and change the deadline retroactively? Technically, yes…but in one month? Hardly likely – plus there is another wee problem. 38 states ratified over the last 50 years, true. BUT:

Five of those states later rescinded their ERA ratifications for various reasons, however, at present, the prior ratifications are still being counted in the final total. The five states that rescinded their ERA ratifications were:

• Idaho
• Kentucky
• Nebraska
• South Dakota
• Tennessee     Thoughtco.com

Seems to me that if you demand to account for all the actions since the deadline, you also have to account for the NEGATIVES  since the deadline. They are still short.

Category: Liberals suck, Politics