The Equal Rights Amendment is officially dead according to the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel. This is a huge win for women and girls everywhere who would lose so many rights under ERA. We are four decades past the moment when ERA went lifeless under its own deadline for ratification. Detailed legal analysis from the Office of Legal Counsel determined that it is long past any chance at resuscitation.
The OLC explained that “Congress may not revive a proposed amendment after a deadline for its ratification has expired. . . . Should Congress wish to propose the amendment anew, it may do so through the same procedures required to propose an amendment in the first instance.” The OLC knows as well as you and I do that ERA would never pass with two-thirds majorities in the current congressional climate. You could hardly get two-thirds of this Congress to agree to pass a resolution saying the sky is blue, nevertheless that men should be allowed to stay at battered women’s shelters.
The Archivist of the United States immediately stated that he would comply with this legal opinion, as he should. He has no business adding to the Constitution via some belated attempt by a state to ratify this amendment posthumously. This good news comes not a moment too soon. Liberals who have taken over the statehouse in Richmond had planned to make Virginia the thirty-eighth state to supposedly “ratify” ERA. They passed their phony “ratification” in spite of the OLC opinion, which means our victory isn’t final yet. The feminists have already started lawsuits to overrule the OLC opinion.
That’s not the only reason why feminists have been reliving their ERA fantasies. A trailer for a new miniseries about Phyllis Schlafly called “Mrs. America” is making waves. Two-time Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett is portraying Phyllis, but the script is certainly going to align with the ideology of radical feminists and the ERA. Feminists may be living in their liberal fantasies, but here in the real world it’s clearer than ever that the Equal Rights Amendment is dead. Their abortion-on-demand version of “equality” isn’t a winner for the American people.
