Virginia Committee votes down Equal Rights Amendment!

From Catherine Marshall from Virginia

Looks great!  What a victory!

FYI, today the Virginia Senate Rules Committee voted against ratifying the (non-existing) ERA.  If you can believe it, a crowd of Leftists basically took over the Committee singing “We Shall Overcome” and being extremely loud and obnoxious, making threats about the defeat being on national news, and any legislator who votes against will be replaced.  What a circus! (I was watching the committee hearing on streaming video).  The vote was not recorded but they did show hands and it was a strictly party vote.  Thank God!

Then the House Privileges and Elections Committee adjourned their meeting as they were beginning to discuss the ERA legislation when the same crowd went wild again.

The Lefties are claiming they need three more states to ratify the ERA from the 1970’s!!!  My hubby did an article about the history of the failure that we are hoping a newspaper will print.  A friend suggested he send it to someone he knew at the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Times MIGHT be interested.

These Leftists care nothing about the rule of law.

The article below is by Eagle Forum Attorney Colleen Holmes Holcomb on the ERA time limit.

Article V of the Constitution provides that an amendment may be proposed either by:

1. Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or
2. By a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures.

The so-called “Equal Rights Amendment” passed both Houses of Congress with the requisite two-thirds majority vote in 1972, but the text of the ERA passed by Congress imposed a seven-year deadline for ratification by two-thirds of the state legislatures.

Following ERA’s passage in Congress, 35 states voted to ratify ERA between 1972 and 1979.  *Of those 35 states, 24 of them specifically referenced the 1979 deadline in their ratification bills, indicating that the legislators acknowledged this time limit.  Thus, the legislative intent was that the ratification vote expired March 22, 1979.

Additionally, between 1973 and 1979 five states rescinded their ratification. (ERA proponents say that the Constitution is silent on whether or not a state can rescind a ratification, so they conveniently argue they can’t.)

The Constitution is designed to ensure that government action reflects the will of the people.  (It would take a blatantly activist judge to uphold a state’s ratification after rescission, and it would be wildly unpopular.)

When the March 22, 1979 deadline passed without the requisite number of states having ratified the Amendment, ERA proponents argue that Congress adopted a Joint Resolution in the House of Representatives, and this resolution was signed by President Carter.  The Resolution received only a simple majority, not a two-thirds majority. Thus, the Resolution did not constitute a valid extension.

Even with the “crooked extension” no more states ratified the ERA.

The only court ruling on the issue of the alleged extension, the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho’s decision in Idaho v. Freeman, declared that the extension was unconstitutional.

Proponents of the “three-state strategy” rely on the Supreme Court’s decision in Coleman v. Miller, 307U.S.433 (1939) in support of their theory that the states’ prior ratification of ERA is still valid.

They claim that Coleman v. Miller stands for the proposition that Congress has broad discretion in setting the parameters for ratification of an amendment.  However, Congress did not include a deadline for ratification in the amendment in question in Colemanas they did for ERA.  The Court noted in Coleman that Congress was well aware of the fact that it could have imposed a time limit on the proposed amendment in question when the amendment was drafted, but it chose not to do so.  That is completely different from the situation with ERA in which Congress expressly did impose a time limit for ratification and 24 of the 35 states acknowledged this deadline in their ratification bills.

• Advocates of the three-state strategy know it is impossible to revive the dead ERA.  This is nothing more than a fundraising cause concept for feminists.

• Advocates of the three-state strategy are asking Congress to bind citizens in 35 states to a vote that reflected the political climate 38-40 years ago without any input on the issue today.  What if this were a Defense of Marriage Amendment that had been ratified by 35 states?  Would three-state strategy opponents argue that such ratification would still be valid?

• Advocates of the three-state strategy insist that judges will accept the idea that a Congress in 2017 can retroactively modify a prior Congress’ bill, and override the expressed intent of legislatures in the 24 states that specifically referenced the deadline in their ratification bills.

• Advocates of the three state strategy insist that judges will not only accept a retroactive suspension of Congress’ express deadline for ratification, but will also invalidate five states properly passed bills rescinding ratification.

• Will transfer from the State Legislatures to the Federal Government all laws governing marriage, divorce, family property law, adoptions, abortions, alimony, some criminal laws, public and private schools, prison regulations, and insurance rates.
• Senator Sam Ervin said,” If this Equal Rights Amendment is adopted, it will virtually reduce the States of this Nation to meaningless zeroes on the Nation’s map.”
• Will put same-sex marriage and abortion into the US Constitution.
• Will require taxpayer funding of abortions.
• Will apply the draft registration law to 18-26 year-old women and serving in combat just like men.
• How will the US Supreme Court define “on account of sex”?

http://www.eagleforum.org/era 

ERA: Another Effort to Sneak Abortion into the Constitution:http://liveactionnews.org/equal-rights-amendment-another-effort-sneak-abortion-constitution/

Do you know what ERA means? http://www.eagleforum.org/era/2003/ERA-Brochure.shtml

More information at: http://www.eagleforum.org/era

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