Today, U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand released the following statement following the archivist’s refusal to certify the Equal Rights Amendment:
“The archivist is correct that she has a responsibility to uphold the law. Unfortunately, by refusing to certify the ERA, she is wrongfully inserting herself into a clear constitutional process, despite the fact that her role is purely ministerial.
The archivist’s arguments on the ratification process for the Equal Rights Amendment are deeply flawed in multiple ways.
First, the 2022 Office of Legal Counsel memo did not affirm that a deadline was valid and enforceable; rather, it said that the deadline remained an open legal question. Furthermore, it should be obvious that the Trump administration’s 2020 OLC memo was a political document, given its departure from prior OLC opinions and its problematic reliance on superseded and invalid precedent. Clearly, it was issued as an attempt to kill the ERA after it had met the necessary requirements for certification. Finally, the simple truth is that OLC memos are advisory in nature and can easily be disregarded by the current administration.
Second, the statement mischaracterizes the district and circuit court decisions, which did not affirm that the ratification deadlines set by Congress were valid. In reality, the district court found that the parties lacked standing, and the circuit court found that the standard for injunctive relief was not met.
Third, there is no shortage of precedent demonstrating that so-called deadlines in the preamble of legislation—not in the text itself—are inoperative. In fact, the Constitution does not grant Congress the power to set ratification deadlines for amendments at all, nor does it include any timeliness requirement of its own. A previous archivist certified and published an amendment written more than two hundred years before its ratification.
Our argument has strong support from legal experts, twenty-three attorneys general, and the American Bar Association. I continue to urge President Biden to direct the archivist to certify and publish the ERA and enshrine equality for all in the Constitution.”
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