Trump administration asks court to dismiss lawsuit to add ERA to US Constitution
(CNN)The Trump administration is asking a federal court to throw out a lawsuit from three attorneys general that seeks to add the Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution.
In January, the attorneys general of Virginia, Illinois and Nevada sued US archivist David Ferriero in US District Court in Washington, DC, to force him to "carry out his statutory duty of recognizing the complete and final adoption" of the ERA as the 28th Amendment to the Constitution.
On Thursday, Department of Justice officials with the civil division filed a motion to dismiss the case -- an expected move that follows a January opinion from the department's Office of Legal Counsel that the deadline to ratify the ERA has expired.
In a court document, the officials argued that the plaintiffs lack standing because they haven't alleged a "concrete injury" linked to the actions of the US archivist and that the complaint should be dismissed "for failure to state a claim."
They also argue that whether states can validly rescind ratification of an amendment isn't "ripe for review" and that the plaintiff's claims would require the court to "decide issues that are non-justiciable political questions."
PHOTOS: History of the ERA
Schlafly led protests against the ERA, including this one at the White House in 1977. The group, about 200 strong, was protesting then-first lady Rosalyn Carter's campaign for the ERA. Amendment supporters like Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, say their real enemy was never Schlafly but big business and insurance companies.
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PHOTOS: History of the ERA
Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy speaks at an ERA fundraising dinner in Washington in 1980. Kennedy spent more than three decades as a champion for the amendment in Congress.
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PHOTOS: History of the ERA
Eleanor Smeal, then-president of the National Organization for Women, left, and first lady Betty Ford attend an ERA rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1981.
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PHOTOS: History of the ERA
From left, Rep. Gwen Moore, Sen. Bob Menendez and Rep. Carolyn Maloney hold a news conference in 2010 outside the U.S. Capitol to call for passage of the ERA. The amendment has been introduced in nearly every session of Congress since 1923.
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PHOTOS: History of the ERA
ERA supporters like to quote late US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who told California Lawyer in a January 2011 issue, "Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't."
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PHOTOS: History of the ERA
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, seen here at an annual Women's History Month event at the US Capitol a few years ago, said this when she was asked how she would amend the Constitution: "If I could choose an amendment to add to this Constitution, it would be the Equal Rights Amendment."
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PHOTOS: History of the ERA
The feminist activists of the 1960s, '70s and early '80s weren't the first to push for an Equal Rights Amendment. Suffragist leader Alice Paul, second from right, fought hard to pass the 19th Amendment -- which earned women the right to vote in 1920. She drafted the first ERA and introduced it to Congress in 1923.
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PHOTOS: History of the ERA
In 1972, the House and Senate passed the ERA by the required two-thirds votes before sending it to state legislatures for ratification. Three-quarters of the states needed to ratify it, but the ERA fell three states short by its 1982 deadline.
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PHOTOS: History of the ERA
Gloria Steinem was among the key forces behind the ERA effort in the '70s and '80s. Although it wasn't ratified, most men and women were pro-ERA, Steinem says.
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PHOTOS: History of the ERA
President Richard Nixon endorsed the ERA after it was adopted with bipartisan support in both houses of Congress in 1972.
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PHOTOS: History of the ERA
The face of ERA opposition, back in the day, was Phyllis Schlafly, the conservative activist who founded the Eagle Forum. She died in 2016 but said a year earlier that efforts to revive the ERA were "a colossal waste of time."
Hide Caption
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PHOTOS: History of the ERA
Schlafly led protests against the ERA, including this one at the White House in 1977. The group, about 200 strong, was protesting then-first lady Rosalyn Carter's campaign for the ERA. Amendment supporters like Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, say their real enemy was never Schlafly but big business and insurance companies.
Hide Caption
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PHOTOS: History of the ERA
Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy speaks at an ERA fundraising dinner in Washington in 1980. Kennedy spent more than three decades as a champion for the amendment in Congress.
Hide Caption
7 of 11
PHOTOS: History of the ERA
Eleanor Smeal, then-president of the National Organization for Women, left, and first lady Betty Ford attend an ERA rally on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1981.
Hide Caption
8 of 11
PHOTOS: History of the ERA
From left, Rep. Gwen Moore, Sen. Bob Menendez and Rep. Carolyn Maloney hold a news conference in 2010 outside the U.S. Capitol to call for passage of the ERA. The amendment has been introduced in nearly every session of Congress since 1923.
Hide Caption
9 of 11
PHOTOS: History of the ERA
ERA supporters like to quote late US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who told California Lawyer in a January 2011 issue, "Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn't."
Hide Caption
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PHOTOS: History of the ERA
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, seen here at an annual Women's History Month event at the US Capitol a few years ago, said this when she was asked how she would amend the Constitution: "If I could choose an amendment to add to this Constitution, it would be the Equal Rights Amendment."
Hide Caption
11 of 11
PHOTOS: History of the ERA
The feminist activists of the 1960s, '70s and early '80s weren't the first to push for an Equal Rights Amendment. Suffragist leader Alice Paul, second from right, fought hard to pass the 19th Amendment -- which earned women the right to vote in 1920. She drafted the first ERA and introduced it to Congress in 1923.
Hide Caption
1 of 11
PHOTOS: History of the ERA
In 1972, the House and Senate passed the ERA by the required two-thirds votes before sending it to state legislatures for ratification. Three-quarters of the states needed to ratify it, but the ERA fell three states short by its 1982 deadline.
Hide Caption
2 of 11
PHOTOS: History of the ERA
Gloria Steinem was among the key forces behind the ERA effort in the '70s and '80s. Although it wasn't ratified, most men and women were pro-ERA, Steinem says.
Hide Caption
3 of 11
PHOTOS: History of the ERA
President Richard Nixon endorsed the ERA after it was adopted with bipartisan support in both houses of Congress in 1972.
Hide Caption
4 of 11
PHOTOS: History of the ERA
The face of ERA opposition, back in the day, was Phyllis Schlafly, the conservative activist who founded the Eagle Forum. She died in 2016 but said a year earlier that efforts to revive the ERA were "a colossal waste of time."
Hide Caption
5 of 11
PHOTOS: History of the ERA
Schlafly led protests against the ERA, including this one at the White House in 1977. The group, about 200 strong, was protesting then-first lady Rosalyn Carter's campaign for the ERA. Amendment supporters like Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation, say their real enemy was never Schlafly but big business and insurance companies.
Hide Caption
6 of 11
The same officials in April filed a motion to dismiss another federal lawsuit in Massachusetts, where the group Equal Means Equal has sued to ensure the ERA is adopted.
Supporters say the ERA would ban discrimination on the basis of sex and guarantee equality for women under the Constitution, while opponents argue many protections are already enshrined at the state level and that the ERA would allow more access to abortion.
Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, who's leading the lawsuit in DC, condemned the Trump administration's actions.
"Donald Trump is telling the women of America that, after 231 years, they should just sit down and wait even longer for equal treatment under the Constitution. It's wrong, it's offensive, and it's shameful," Herring, a Democrat, said in a statement Friday.
"If the Trump Administration opposes a Constitutional guarantee of equality for women then they should just say so rather than hiding behind process and trying to throw the issue into (Senate Majority Leader) Mitch McConnell's hands," he added.
Virginia ratified the ERA in January, which supporters argue was the final step toward the 38-state threshold necessary to enshrine an amendment in the US Constitution.
Efforts in the US Congress to keep the matter alive and eliminate the ERA deadline have stalled.
The Democratic-led US House in February voted to eliminate the deadline, but McConnell has given no indication that the GOP-led Senate would take up the House resolution.
CNN's Clare Foran contributed to this report.
I had an ERA bracelet and wore it faithfully for years, I am sure I still have it,
somewhere.
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| 1974: A $3 bracelet with the initials “E.R.A.” and a nickel silver finish that doesn't give the wearer a green wrist is proving to be a best seller among the nation's feminists. |
I do not believe there is any valid reason why the ERA should not be ratified.
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