Alton, IL – D.C. federal district court judge Rudolf Contreras, an Obama appointee, put yet another nail in the coffin of the long-dead Equal Rights Amendment.
Contreras held that Congress acted within its power when it imposed a seven-year deadline for ratification when the Amendment passed in 1972. In so ruling, Contreras has derailed ERA advocates’ recent effort to revive the Amendment. “The Court will not pull the rug out from under Congress’s long-accepted practice of declaring ratification conditions in a proposing resolution’s preamble based on a technicality,” wrote Contreras.
The ERA died in 1979 when it fell short of the Constitutional requirement that 38 states ratify the Amendment. By 1979, only 35 states passed ratification bills, and of those, five states had passed legislation to rescind their ratification. In the wake of the “me too” movement, feminists attempted to resurrect ERA by passing ratification bills in Nevada, Illinois, and Virginia, claiming that the ratification deadline was unconstitutional, and demanding that the Amendment be added to the Constitution upon ratification in Virginia, the 38th state.
Judge Contreras also threw cold water on the attempt in Congress today to retroactively remove the seven-year deadline. “Congressional promulgation…comes into play only when a proposed amendment has no deadline,” he wrote. Everyone now should reject the misguided attempt by Cong. Jackie Speier (D-CA) to retroactively remove the deadline on ERA in her House Joint Resolution 17.
“Eagle Forum’s beloved founder, Phyllis Schlafly, led the fight against the so-called Equal Rights Amendment because she understood that the amendment, as written, was not pro-woman. As we see so vividly today in the crisis surrounding women’s sports, the political definition of sex is trumping the biological definition, which is allowing biological men to steal championships and scholarships from women. Efforts to eliminate discrimination on the basis of ‘sex,’ always end up harming women,” said Eagle Forum President Colleen Holcomb. Eagle Forum filed an Amicus Brief opposing the amendment's certification.
“Judge Contreras’ ruling confirms that ERA is dead. We urge all those who are truly concerned about promoting women’s advancement and safety to abandon the empty promises of ERA and join us in the fight against actual exploitation of and discrimination against women,” Holcomb concluded.
