RI’s AG needs refresher course on Constitution

For more than 50 years the left has advanced their political agenda by finding activist judges who legislate from the bench. That is why the progressive Democrats are in such high dudgeon over recent rulings on abortion, gun rights and limits on the EPA by the majority originalist justices on the Supreme Court.

A good example of judicial fiat is the suit filed in Rhode Island federal district court by the Elizabeth Cady Trust that would add the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution.

Passed by Congress in 1972, the Equal Rights Amendment reads, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State on account of sex.” The wording is awkward by today’s standard and should be objected to by the LGBTQ+ community.

Amending the Constitution requires a two-thirds vote on a joint resolution by both houses of Congress whereupon it is sent to the states by the national archivist. The president plays no part in approving the resolution.

Three-quarters (38) of the state legislatures must ratify the amendment and notify the archivist who is tracking it. Then it becomes an amendment. This is the process that has been followed 27 times in our history.

The joint resolution required the ERA to be passed in seven years. When it became obvious that this would not happen by 1979, Congress authorized another three years for ratification. Nineteen eighty two came and went and it was thought the ERA had died.

Thirty-eight years too late, in 2020 Virginia ratified the ERA. In 2021 Judge Rudolph Contreras in the District of Columbia ruled that the deadline to ratify the ERA “expired long ago.”

Now, 50 years later Rhode Island lawyers Amy Rice and Megan E. Sheehan

are asking federal Judge Mary S. McElroy to amend the Constitution from the bench. In this they are supported by Attorney General Peter Nehrona.

Attorneys Rice and Megan argue that “The ERA is critically important to democracy.” Never mind that it was not ratified within the timeframe stated in the joint resolution or within the three year extension. You see, it is not the constitutional process that matters; it is because we need to “equally protect women from sex-based classifications and discrimination.”

It should be noted that between 1973 and 1979 three of the states, Nebraska, Tennessee and South Dakota, have rescinded their ratifications as they are permitted to do. So, regardless of what Judge McElroy rules, the ERA is still three states short of ratification.