Nice Time? In Joe Biden’s Opinion, All You Ladies Are Equal!

Wow this National Archivist lady is a real dick!

Jimmy Carter signing the extension of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) ratification in 1978

In an um, thanks, gesture, Old Handsome Joe Biden has sent out a statement that he considers the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution to be “the law of the land,” though to come into effect the amendment would need to be certified and published by the National Archivist, Colleen Shogan. And Biden did not order her to do that. And Shogan said Friday, as well as many times in the past, including at her confirmation hearing, that she won’t do that, seemingly making Biden’s statement an empty gesture. (Shogan, you will learn below, is a real piece of WHOA!) But a very nice thought, Joe, I guess?

Biden’s statement:

I have supported the Equal Rights Amendment for more than 50 years, and I have long been clear that no one should be discriminated against based on their sex. We, as a nation, must affirm and protect women’s full equality once and for all.

On January 27, 2020, the Commonwealth of Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. The American Bar Association (ABA) has recognized that the Equal Rights Amendment has cleared all necessary hurdles to be formally added to the Constitution as the 28th Amendment. I agree with the ABA and with leading legal constitutional scholars that the Equal Rights Amendment has become part of our Constitution.

It is long past time to recognize the will of the American people. In keeping with my oath and duty to Constitution and country, I affirm what I believe and what three-fourths of the states have ratified: the 28th Amendment is the law of the land, guaranteeing all Americans equal rights and protections under the law regardless of their sex.

It’s puzzling. If he considered it ratified in 2020, why did he wait more than four years to do this? Or why not order the Archivist to publish it and let her refuse, then let court battles play out? The Supreme Court probably would’ve tossed it out anyway, being who they are, but at least it would have been a more fulsome gesture. Well, maybe it can become the 28th Amendment in 102 more years!

To refresh your memory, if you’re 102 years old, the ERA was first introduced in Congress in 1923 by suffragist Alice Paul, and was initially called the “Lucretia Mott Amendment,” pronouncing that “Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction.” In the 1940s, both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party added the Equal Rights Amendments to their party platforms, and it was introduced in every Congress. And finally, in 1972, it passed both the House of Representatives and the Senate and was sent to the states for ratification.

But there was a catch. Congress placed a time limit of seven years for the ratification process, with 38 states required to ratify it for it to become law. That deadline passed, Congress voted to extend the time limit for another three years, and Jimmy Carter signed it. And by the second deadline, June 30, 1982, the ERA remained three states short of 38, with much credit to the work of Phyllis Schlafly’s “STOP ERA” movement. These kinda women, they’ve always been around!

Anti-ERA women watching a committee meeting of the Florida Senate in 1979 (public domain)

Finally, in 2020 Virginia became the 38th state to ratify it, which was nice and also way past the deadline. And then, on March 17, 2021, the House of Representatives passed legislation to remove the original time limit, but the corresponding Senate bill, SJ Res 6, got stuck to the bottom of somebody’s shoe, and it never came up for a vote. And the Trump White House declared it was too bad, too sad, too late, now you gotta start all over.

But in 2022, the Office of Legal Counsel of the US Department of Justice (OLC) published an opinion that “the 2020 OLC Opinion is not an obstacle either to Congress’s ability to act with respect to ratification of the ERA or to judicial consideration.” And so in 2023, Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Representative Cori Bush introduced a joint resolution that it had already been ratified and was enforceable as the 28th Amendment.

Worthwhile to mention, according to Pew, 78 percent of Americans favor adding the ERA to the Constitution. And 85 percent of countries’ constitutions explicitly guarantee equal rights on the basis of gender (not that it necessarily works out in practice that way).

But with Shogan unwilling to publish the ERA as the 28th Amendment, Biden’s gesture hits about as hard as a grape juice toast.

Alice Paul celebrating the 1920 ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment with a grape juice toast, because Prohibition.

Colleen Shogan, remember her? She’s the one who complained about Archives employees being too “woke,” and hand-pruned an exhibition at the National Archives Museum to make it less irritating to Republicans’ hemorrhoids, softening history for them by replacing images of Martin Luther King Jr., labor-union pioneer Dolores Huerta, and Minnie Spotted-Wolf, the first Native American woman to join the Marine Corps, with photos of Elvis shaking Richard Nixon’s hand and Ronald Reagan with Cal Ripken Jr., instead. She also demanded her employees remove Dorothea Lange’s photos of Japanese-American incarceration camps and references to the internment camps from written educational materials because they were “too negative.” And, she asked that a video promoting National History Day remove a photo of former first lady Betty Ford wearing an Equal Rights Amendment pin. And more, so much more! Also, her husband is communications director for Charles Koch’s nonprofit, Stand Together.

So, if anyone is gonna go ahead and publish the ERA as the 28th Amendment, well, it won’t be Colleen Shogan. And even if she did, would this SCOTUS respect it?

But still, thanks for thinking of us gals, Joe. It was a very nice thought but you took so fucking long that it’s basically pointless will be the title of your chapter in the history books!

[Alicepaul dot org/ NY Times archive link/ Wall Street Journal gift link]

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