Free Republic

A federal judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit filed by three Democratic state attorneys general that had sought to force the federal government to recognize Virginia’s vote last year to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment and add it to the Constitution. Shortly after Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the amendment that supporters say will guarantee women equal rights under the law, the archivist of the United States declared he would take no action to certify the amendment’s adoption, citing an opinion from the Department of Justice under the Trump administration. Constitutional amendments must be ratified by three-quarters of...

RICHMOND — Both chambers of Virginia’s General Assembly passed the Equal Rights Amendment Wednesday, fulfilling a promise that helped Democrats seize control of the legislature and marking a watershed moment in the nearly century-long effort to add protections for women to the U.S. Constitution.

As America enters a new decade, progressives are stepping boldly into … the bra-burning feminism of the 1970s. Specifically, they’re trying to resurrect the Equal Rights Amendment, the radical feminist constitutional amendment the rest of us had long thought a dead issue. If they manage to ratify — a dubious constitutional proposition — they could enshrine left-wing gender dogmas into the highest law of the land. This year, Virginia is expected to ratify the ERA, bringing the total number of states to have done so since its heyday in the ’70s to 38, the threshold needed for amending the Constitution....

RICHMOND, Va. — Supporters of the Equal Rights Amendment are so confident Virginia is on the verge of becoming the critical 38th state to ratify the gender equality measure, they are already making plans for how they will celebrate. But that jubilation could be largely symbolic. Despite broad support for the amendment in the state, the ERA’s prospects nationally are substantially more complicated. The proposed 28th amendment to the U.S. Constitution faces a host of likely legal challenges and vehement opposition from conservative activists who depict the ERA as a threat to their stances on abortion and transgender rights.

It may be the most dangerous bill no one's really talking about. But if becomes law -- this radical grab bag of social extremism -- all of America will live to regret it. Meet the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). It's not just about women anymore. In fact, it's not really about women at all. How much damage can 52 words do? Trust me, you don't want to find out. The House majority's new ERA may be short, but the list of consequences is never-ending. Liberals will say it's about equality, but what it's really about is a one-way ticket to...

Re: Pro-life scorecard alert on the abortion-expansive 1972 “Equal Rights Amendment” Dear Member of Congress: On November 13, the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on H. J. Res. 79, a measure that purports to erase, ex post facto, the seven-year ratification deadline that Congress included in the ERA resolution submitted in 1972. The full House is expected to vote on this measure in the not-distant future. National Right to Life is strongly opposed to H. J. Res. 79, and intends to include the roll call in our scorecard of key pro-life votes of the 116th...

The US Constitution was written in 1787, and a group of papers called the Federalist Papers and Anti-Federalist Papers proceeded to examine the issue in detail thru Jan 1788. New York met in June, 1788 to vote on New York's acceptance of the US Constitution. Henry Livingston's brother Gilbert voted for ratification, even though it had been assumed he would vote against it. This page includes deep details on the NY Constitutional Convention of 1788, with the text of the Anti-Federalist papers. The "The Ifs of History" book suggests that the US Constitution might not have been approved if Gilbert...

Reflections on the anniversary of the first ratification convention’s conclusion… On December 7, 1787, at Elizabeth Battel's Golden Fleece Tavern in Dover, Delaware, the state of Delaware became the first state to ratify the new Constitution of the United States, and did so by a unanimous vote of thirty to zero. With such an auspicious beginning, we might think that national ratification would be a foregone conclusion, but ... no such luck. As easy a decision as it was for some states, it was a very difficult one for others. We think there are huge differences between the states today...

Among the shortcomings of the Articles of Confederation was the near impossibility of amending them to meet pressing needs regarding taxation and commerce. In 1787-1788, the lower threshold to amend the Constitution per Article V overcame Anti-Federalist reluctance to form a new Union. From the time the federal convention sent the draft Constitution to the Confederation Congress and states, many Anti-Federalists demanded a second convention, preferably before federal elections and the establishment of a new government. Not only the Anti-Federalists, but very few Federalists were entirely satisfied with the Constitution as written. The difference was that Federalists were satisfied that...

James Madison and Federalist supporters of the Constitution carried the day in the Confederation Congress. Although Congress did not express explicit support, it sent the Constitution anyway to the states for submission to ratifying conventions. Most notably, Congress did not attach the amendments recommended by Virginia’s Richard Henry Lee. To Lee, amending the Constitution before ratification made simple sense. Just a few preventive amendments may mean the difference between a republic and an aristocracy likely to slide into oligarchy. So, as the Anti-Federalist forces gathered, the nationwide question remained: Should an imperfect Constitution be amended before the ratification of nine...

In something a flashback from the Eagle’s Super Bowl victory, riot and mayhem also welcomed the draft Constitution when it made the Philadelphia newspapers. Advocates of the new plan held a majority in the Pennsylvania legislature, then in the last days of its regular session, and they attempted to ram through a statute calling for a ratification convention. To prevent a quorum, some of the Constitution’s opponents, the Anti-Federalists, made themselves scarce. The Assembly sent the sergeant-at-arms to seize enough absent members to establish a quorum, and forcibly kept them on the floor of the chamber. It is difficult today...

WASHINGTON — Americans following this year's presidential campaign would never know it from mainstream media coverage, but the commander in chief we hired four years ago has set the United States on a course for unilateral disarmament. The following people hope you won't notice until after Nov. 6: Vladimir Putin, Liang Guanglie, Kim Jong-un, Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, Sayyed Ali Hosseini Khamenei, Abdul Fattah al-Sisi, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, A.Q. Khan and of course, Barack Obama. The 10 individuals above share a common fascination: nuclear weapons. Vladimir Putin, Russia's modern czar; Liang Guanglie, minister of national defense for...

Let's call this one "true, but misleading." On today's Daily Rundown, discussing the letter sent by Senate Republicans to the Iranian regime, Washington Post reporter Ishaan Tharoor, said that "it is the president who ratifies treaties." Tharoor is right, but only in a trivial sense. The president does formally ratify treaties in that he exchanges instruments of ratification with the foreign power(s). But that occurs only if and when the Senate has approved the treaty by a two-thirds majority vote. Tharoor made no mention of that little proviso. View the video here.

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)President Barack Obama slammed Republican senators who penned a letter attempting to warn Iran that any pending nuclear agreement will face their scrutiny, claiming they were aligning themselves with Iranian "hard-liners." "I think it's somewhat ironic to see some members for Congress wanting to make common cause with the hard-liners in Iran. It's an unusual coalition," Obama said Monday ahead of a meeting with European Council President Donald Tusk. "I think what we're going to focus on right now is actually seeing whether we're going to get a deal or not. Once we do, if we do, we'll be able...

The legal principal is that if you ratify through funding of the illegal act of a president gone berserk, you have just ratified his illegal act, waived objection and approved of his decree. STOP THIS!!

An Indiana state senator wants to change the way US senators are elected. Until the 17th Amendment was ratified a century ago, senators weren't elected directly, but by state legislatures. Charlestown State Senator Jim Smith says the idea was to make senators responsive to their states‘ concerns. He argues the switch to direct election has contributed to a shift in the balance of power from the states to the federal government. Smith says it‘s separated senators from state concerns and made it harder to remove them. "As the needs of the state of Indiana change," says Smith,"then we would essentially...

t’s a movement that’s been building in recent years: efforts by states to reclaim their constitutional authority by declaring Washington’s health care laws, gun control or other restrictions simply don’t apply within their boundaries. After all, the Constitution stipulates that, except for a couple of dozen specific issues such as national defense, the powers in the U.S. rest with the states. Now a new lawsuit contends states can regain their authority by returning to the practice of having state legislatures elect U.S. senators, as the Constitution originally required. The case is being brought by author, columnist, commentator and activist Devvy...

- Reflections on the anniversary of New York’s ratification of the Constitution of the United States. On July 26, 1788, the New York State Ratifying Convention voted – by a slim margin of 30 to 27 – to ratify the Constitution of the United States, essentially re-joining the nation that was now in the process of being reorganized. The people of New York City celebrated with the greatest parade of the era, marching through Manhattan Island to cheering crowds. The old New York establishment may have disliked the new Constitution, but the people of America’s fast-growing metropolis certainly saw its...

At the behest of House Judiciary Committee Chairman Cale Keable, D-Burrillville, the Rhode Island House has finally voted to ratify the 17th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which reqired direct election of U.S. Senators. Before the amendment took effect in 1913, senators were elected by state legislators. That system was widely criticized for breeding corruption as senate aspirants bribed lawmakers to secure the votes needed to win senate seats. The ceremonial resolution approved by the House doesn’t change anything, Keable acknowledged, but he said it does send a message ``that Rhode Island values democracy.’’ Rhode Island never ratified the 17th...

The United States, the world’s largest arms dealer, has joined more than 90 other nations in signing a treaty that regulates global arms trading, but there is strong resistance in the Senate, which must ratify it. Secretary of State John Kerry, who signed the Arms Trade Treaty on Wednesday, said it was a “significant step” in keeping the world safe and preventing terrorists and others from obtaining conventional weapons. … Addressing U.S. critics of the treaty, the former senator said fears that it would undermine Americans’ constitutional right to keep and bear arms are not grounded in reality. For one,...