🧨ReproRights🔥🔥VP Harris, 🧯BREAK GLASS!!
Updated June 25, 2022
So Disheartened
I don’t have much time, so here’s my tweet:
I 📩CLINIC ATTYS @ReproRights 2 DO MOTION 2 file Supplemental Brief on ERA per Supreme Court Rules 25.6 & 25.7, & THEY KNEW THIS & DID NOTHING!!🥀
I 📩all LAW 2 WH Counsel & 2 Counsel for @VP & sent to 5 Sr Staff women! @POTUS KNEW he cd STOP Dobbs by Publishing #ERA & HE DID NOTHING! 🥀
📖 Read my Letter to the White House Counsel (also sent to 2 top attorneys for VP Harris, & 5 other top women in Biden Administration). https://adobe.ly/3buaFSa
ASK THEM WHY THEY DID NOTHING TO SAVE US FROM THIS HORROR SHOW aka HANDMAIDS’ HELL!
***UPDATE JUNE 17, 2022***
Hopefully, it’s not too late, but just today, I was finally able to email all this critical information with the necessary ERA Law, my draft Executive Order, our Motion in Dobbs for Leave to brief on how the ERA is the 28th Amendment and protects Reproductive Rights, and my Three-Prong Strategy, to the new White House Counsel, imploring President Biden to publish the ERA and let the U.S. Solicitor General know it’s published, so she will move to re-brief in Dobbs, with copies to six brilliant women: Vice President’s Associate Counsel, two Senior Advisors to the President, WH Deputy Chief of Staff, WH Domestic Policy Advisor, and the WH Director of Political Strategy and Outreach. I hope they will take my advice to act immediately to prevent the Alito opinion from being released and instead having SCOTUS consider the entire Constitution, including the ERA, which makes the Mississippi abortion law unconstitutional, and should prevent them from touching Roe, Casey, and the current right to privacy, instead of trying to stick hundreds of fingers in dikes to try to ameliorate the devastating, far-reaching fallout from an Alito opinion. Readers can voice their opinions to @VP & @POTUS by tweet and IG, and tagging them on Facebook.
*****
OPEN LETTER TO VP KAMALA HARRIS
Vice President Harris:
I must believe that you sincerely want to save Women’s Rights, but I don’t understand how you cannot know that President Biden is wearing the Ruby Slippers. 👠👠
ONLY PRESIDENT BIDEN CAN STOP SCOTUS from incinerating ReproRights! He just has to tell the Archivist to Publish the Equal Rights Amendment NOW. I drafted a handy Executive Order (below & here).
Even writing this, because SCOTUS has about 30 opinions left and they announced two new opinion days for this coming week, I vacillate between “why bother” and “maybe if I do just one more thing….” So, here it is. & I’m certain I’m not the only woman feeling this panic, but you, our first female VP, a lawyer, a feminist - how did you not know the ERA protects Reproductive Rights by its plain text and that it provides a Fundamental Right to abortion and all ReproRights by implication?
I’ve been trying numerous ways to get this info inside the White House since October. I even sent a pocket Constitution, that actually has the ERA printed in it as the 28th Amendment, with a note with a link to one of my blogposts that EXPLAINS HOW THE ERA SAVES US FROM ALITO & THE OTHER TEXTUALISTS, to you & The President.
Legally, the ERA has been the 28th Amendment since its Ratification Date, January 27, 2020, by 38 states, certified by the Archivist here, but hardly anyone believes it, since Trump & Barr blocked its publication and because President Biden has done nothing to get his Archivist to publish it.
In order to stop SCOTUS from issuing an opinion in the Dobbs abortion case, I implore you to review all this information and explain to Pres. Biden that he can and, per his Constitutional duty to take care that the laws are faithfully executed (Art. 2, §3), he must sign an Executive Order (see draft attached) to direct the Archivist to PUBLISH THE ERA, IMMEDIATELY, because the ERA protects Reproductive Rights (& LGBT Rights)!
The ERA, by it’s plain text will cause the Majority, The Textualists, to strike down the MS 15-week abortion ban, and by implication the ERA provides the textual basis for a Fundamental Right to Reproductive Choice. This article explains all the attendant issues of concern with regard to the ERA and why President Biden should feel confident publishing it.
If Pres. Biden DOES NOT ACT NOW, SCOTUS may issue its opinion overturning Roe this week. Then, we will be significantly closer to being a fascist state and having even more civil unrest. We are seeing evidence of this now.
If President Biden does act to save our ReproRights, at least 125 million women (and a lot of men!) will be grateful and invigorated for the midterms. This is an easy lift for him to make historic change. He will make a huge positive impact. He will be fixing one of the most detrimental repressive legal shifts that our country has ever faced.
However, if President Biden refuses his Constitutional DUTY, the Handmaid’s Hell, that the Supreme Court and gleeful Trumpist fascists impose, will literally devastate the wealth-building years of the vast majority of families, because two-worker families will no longer be the norm. Women will be at home with 5-10 children because women’s jobs will not offset the cost of daycare. It will make COVID look like a sloppy dress rehearsal. Universities will no longer be half female, because young women will be having babies as teenagers. Drug addiction and mental health will debilitate extended families trying to afford to care for all the grandchildren. $5 gas will feel like the good ole days. It’s truly a life and death moment for women, for our economy and the American Dream. Be sure to tell President Biden that this is not hyperbole.
In the alternate palatable reality he could create with one signature, President Biden will be making WOMEN, 51% of our population, EQUAL CITIZENS for the very first time since the founding of our country, 246 years ago. In my estimation, the ERA will make the United States a “more perfect Union.” It will literally strengthen our families, our economy and our DEMOCRACY, because, instead of earning roughly 80% of what men earn, equal pay for equal work will be a Constitutional Right, and instead of being about 25% of state legislatures and Congress, women will gain equal parity. Women are more creative and empathetic leaders, so we will all benefit.
If he follows his Constitutional DUTY, President Biden will be doing the most powerful, brave and consequential act ever done by any president, exceeded only by the Emancipation Proclamation. Just as that act was an Executive Order, this one will be President Biden’s historic WOMEN’s EQUALITY PROCLAMATION!
If President Biden publishes the ERA immediately, SCOTUS should push the Dobbs case off to the fall term, and allow re-briefing at least by the parties and any amici who request it, because my sister, Gina Collias, Esq. and I (both ERA attorneys and thankfully members of the Supreme Court Bar), already filed a MOTION in Dobbs (SCOTUS case #19-1392), on May 16, 2022, FOR LEAVE TO FILE AN AMICUS BRIEF, on behalf of ERA-NC Alliance, to argue based on the ERA TO SAVE REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS because, as I said, per Supreme Court precedent, the ERA legally has been the 28th Amendment since January 27, 2020. The ERA then became legally effective (by its own terms) on January 27, 2022. So, the Supreme Court is on notice of the impact the ERA has on Reproductive Choice, and this Motion specifically states that since the majority of the Court are Textualists, they must consider the text of the entire Constitution, and that includes the newly effective ERA.
But if the ERA is published, we will file a new Amended Motion pointing out officially in Dobbs that the ERA has been published. Read the ERA-NC Alliance Motion, filed in Dobbs, May 16, 2022, that sets out the legal grounds and basic arguments linked here.
Also, in our Motion, we cited an excellent new article, by Chicago attorney, Michele Thorne, using the late Justice Scalia’s textualist and originalist interpretation methods (that she refers to as “Scalia’s precision power tools”) to analyze the constitutionality of the ERA Deadline and the five states that attempted to rescind their earlier ratifications of the ERA. Ms. Thorne showed why the ERA deadline is unconstitutional (void ab initio), because it is in the preamble, and why states cannot take back their previous ratifications. Michele Honora Thorne, A New Era for the ERA? Our 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, 36 CBA Rec. 31 (May-June 2022). She also did a very clear CLE video on it. Here is the YouTube link.
Further, PRESIDENT BIDEN has a CONSTITUTIONAL DUTY to PUBLISH the ERA now, (per art. II, §3, U.S. CONST) because he has a duty to “take care that the laws are faithfully executed,” which includes 1 USC §106b that says as soon as 3/4 of the states ratify an amendment, the Archivist shall forthwith certify and publish it. The Archivist has already certified that the requisite 38 states have ratified the ERA, but the Trump/Barr Administration blocked the Archivist from publishing it. See Ms. Rockey’s “Deep Dive legal opinion letter,” that she had written to send to the Vice President’s counsel (but was unable to get the email address) at this link.
President Biden’s Constitutional duty also includes making sure that the ERA, now part of the Constitution, the highest law in the land, is faithfully executed by making sure it is immediately published and that the U.S. Solicitor General files a motion to re-brief in Dobbs based on the ERA.
SO, THE PRESIDENT CAN FEEL CONFIDENT DOING AN EXECUTIVE ORDER NOW.
It is CRITICAL that President Biden publish the ERA immediately, because then the U.S. Solicitor General and the attorneys representing the clinic, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, at the Center for Reproductive Rights, will file Motions to Re-brief based on the ERA, because obviously they have to file before SCOTUS releases its opinion, and the ERA provides a textual basis to win the case.
See the following for more information and resources:
Ms. Rockey’s “Last Hope…” blogpost has A DRAFT EXECUTIVE ORDER and all the relevant law and arguments, including the DOJ’s brief in the DC Circuit Court of Appeals ERA case against the Archivist, representing the Archivist, that says the act of the Archivist publishing the ERA does not make it valid, or not, because an Amendment legally becomes part of the Constitution the date the last necessary state ratifies it, (which was January 27, 2020), per Art. V. Click here to read this blogpost.
Draft EXECUTIVE ORDER below and HERE in proper format. Ms. Rockey has a THREE-PRONG STRATEGY to save Reproductive Rights and to protect the ERA from Court intervention regarding the validity of the ERA by making it more likely that the Court will not take jurisdiction over the issue of the ERA’s validity as it is a Political Question (includes the draft Executive Order and a Substitute ERA Resolution for at least the House to additionally pass asap before or after the ERA is published).
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
President Biden’s Executive Order will be the historic Women’s Equality Proclamation!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
PROPOSED EXECUTIVE ORDER FOR PRESIDENT BIDEN TO DIRECT THE ARCHIVIST TO PUBLISH THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT
Executive Order ________ of June ____, 2022
Publishing the Ratified Equal Rights Amendment as the 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution
By the authority vested in me as President by the U.S. Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Policy. Advancing gender equity and equality is a matter of human rights, justice, and fairness. It is also a strategic imperative that reduces poverty and promotes economic growth, increases access to education, improves health outcomes, advances political stability, and fosters democracy. The full participation of all people—including women and girls—across all aspects of our society is essential to the economic well-being, health, and security of our Nation and of the world.
It is therefore the policy of my Administration that every person should be treated with equality under the laws of the United States and of every state therein and should face no discrimination on the basis of sex. Since the founding of our country, some 245 years ago with the Declaration of Independence, women have been subjected to invidious discrimination inflicted by the laws of this country and its several states. Because equal rights for women have not been explicitly written in the U.S. Constitution, women have continued to suffer legal, societal, and personal indignities and discrimination, physical and sexual assaults that often go unreported or un- redressed in criminal courts, unequal pay for equal work as men, lack of parity in the economic, professional, educational and political spheres, and unequal treatment and bias in the legal system. Women have been deprived of the full benefits of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Without the Equal Rights Amendment published in the U.S. Constitution, women are subjected to a lesser standard of judicial scrutiny, than the strict scrutiny the new 28th Amendment will provide, meaning that women have heretofore suffered more discrimination without the benefits of the Equal Rights Amendment.
It is also the policy of my Administration that the January 6, 2020 Opinion, of the Office of Legal Counsel, on the Ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment, Opinions of the Office of Legal Counsel of the Dep’t of Justice, 44 Op. O.L.C. (released January 8, 2020), was improvidently and wrongly decided, because the deadline in the Equal Rights Amendment was placed, not in its text, but solely in the Preamble, which unconstitutionally interfered with the States’ rights under Art. V and the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Being unconstitutional, the deadline is void ab initio.
Three-fourths of the states have ratified the Equal Rights Amendment, in accordance with Art. V of the U.S. Constitution, with the last three states being Nevada and Illinois, in 2017 and 2018, respectively, and the thirty-eighth, the Commonwealth of Virginia, which ratified the Equal Rights Amendment on January 27, 2020, which date is and shall be known as the date the Equal Rights Amendment was fully ratified.
It is the policy of my Administration to prevent and to combat discrimination on the basis of sex, and to do so by publishing the Equal Rights Amendment forthwith as the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
On March 24, 2020, the Archivist of the United States recorded Virginia’s ratification with a notation that said ratification occurred after the void deadline expired. On the same date, the Archivist added the same notation to the previously recorded ratifications of Nevada and Illinois. NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION: EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT, LIST OF STATE RATIFICATION ACTIONS (https://www.archives.gov/files/foia/pdf/era-list-of-state-ratification- actions-03-24-2020.pdf).
It is the policy of my Administration that the Archivist of the United States, shall remove the aforementioned notations, and per 1 U.S.C. § 106b, that the Archivist of the United States shall forthwith certify that the Equal Rights Amendment was duly ratified on January 27, 2020.
Sec. 2. Specific Provisions. (a) Consistent with the policies set forth in section 1 of this order, the Archivist of the United States shall remove the aforementioned notations, with regard to the void deadline, to the ratifications of Nevada, Illinois, and Virginia.
(b) Consistent with the policies set forth in section 1 of this order, the Archivist of the United States shall certify and publish the Equal Rights Amendment forthwith as the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Sec. 3. General Provisions. (a) Except as stated hereinabove and as are the natural and legal consequences of the publication of the Equal Rights Amendment as the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Archivist of the United States or the Office of Legal Counsel.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
#####