Biden’s last-minute constitutional change criticized by legal experts: ‘Cynical and irrelevant’

Legal experts He criticized President Biden’s announcement declaring the 28th Amendment law as “cynical and irrelevant.”

Biden on Friday issued a statement saying that the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) should be considered ratified and a new addition to the US Constitution.

“It is time to recognize the will of the American people. In accordance with my oath and my duty to the Constitution and the country, I affirm what I believe and what three-quarters of the states have ratified: the 28th Amendment is the law of the land, guaranteeing all Americans equal rights and protection under the law regardless of sex,” he said .

BIDEN’S OFFICIAL

“Biden’s announcement is cynical and irrelevant,” said the former assistant US attorney and Fox News contributor. Andrew McCarthy. “If I believed what he’s saying, he would have said it when he started his administration, not when he’s walking out the door as a failed one-term president.

“More importantly, the president has no constitutional role in the amendment process, so his opinion carries no weight.”

“President Biden seems determined to take his administration from the hateful to the absurd.” Jonathan TurleyFox News contributor and Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University told Fox News Digital. “This was a moment of shameful pandering to the most extreme elements of his party. It is a position based on a frankly ridiculous and long-rejected basis.”

Asked by reporters about the timing of the announcement, Biden said Friday: “Because I had to know all the facts and I contacted every constitutional scholar in the world to make sure it was the right decision.”

The ERA would prohibit discrimination based on gender. It was sent to the states for ratification in 1972, with congress setting a deadline of 1979 for three-quarters of state legislatures to ratify the amendment. Later, the period was extended until 1982.

DANA PERINO PLAYS BIDEN’S CONTROVERSIAL FAREWELL SPEECH

Virginia became the last state pass the amendment in 2020, bringing the final number of states that had passed the amendment to a total of 38. McCarthy noted that the ERA “was not ratified by the states within the deadline established by law.”

“The only way to put it in the Constitution would be to start over,” McCarthy said. “Everyone knows it, including Biden. That’s why the national archivist hasn’t published it, nor has Biden had the temerity to try to order it to be done.”

Turley also said: “Biden notably stopped short of giving the left what they wanted most: an actual executive order on ratification. He simply made a statement and presumably left the matter in the hands of the archivist.”

ERA: WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT

The national archivist is responsible for making constitutional amendments official. The archivist had previously refused to certify the amendment, citing a 2020 opinion by DOJ Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) which “affirmed that the ratification deadline established by Congress for the ERA is valid and enforceable.”

“OLC concluded that extending or eliminating the deadline requires further action by Congress or the courts. Court decisions at both the District and Circuit levels have affirmed that the ratification deadlines established by Congress for the ERA are valid” , the National Archives said in a statement in December. “Therefore, the Archivist of the United States cannot legally publish the Equal Rights Amendment. As leaders of the National Archives, we will comply with these legal precedents and support the constitutional framework in which we operate.”

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“This is just complacency,” McCarthy said. “It won’t have any lasting meaning.”