Below is my column in Fox.com on President Joe Biden’s last-minute declaration that the 28th Amendment is now part of the United States Constitution. It appears that our president sees dead amendments, but that is not the greatest thing that should worry you.
Here is the column:
President Joe Biden wants people to know that he sees dead amendments. Just before leaving office, Biden declared that we have a 28th amendment despite dying in the ratification process years ago.
Not since the movie Sixth Sense has there been a more creepy moment. To paraphrase Cole Sear in the film, Biden does not see them in constitutional coffins but “Walking around like regular [amendments]. They don’t know they’re dead.” Neither does Biden.
Biden waited to shortly before leaving office to pander to the most delusional elements of the Democratic party in unilaterally announcing that the Equal Rights Amendment is now part of the Constitution. The farcical moment was then amplified by figures like Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.) rejoicing and falsely telling women that they can now go to court and enforce the amendment to restore such things as abortion rights.
This bizarre group fantasy was triggered by the following declaration:
“In keeping with my oath and duty to Constitution and country, I affirm what I believe and what three-fourths of the states have ratified: the 28th Amendment is the law of the land, guaranteeing all Americans equal rights and protections under the law regardless of their sex.”
Without naming them, Biden cites dozens of “constitutional experts” to support this absurd claim.
Biden’s last-minute declaration is more creepy than the movie because it requires not just the departure from the constitutional process but reality. Despite running as the champion of democracy, Biden is simply brushing aside the fact that the ERA was not ratified, as made clear by his own Justice Department and his own archivist just weeks ago.
Even the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg declared the amendment dead.
Archivist, Colleen Shogan recently explained that neither her office nor the White House have the authority to publish the amendment unilaterally or waive the deadline for ratification:
“In 2020 and again in 2022, the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice affirmed that the ratification deadline established by Congress for the ERA is valid and enforceable,” she wrote. “The OLC concluded that extending or removing the deadline requires new action by Congress or the courts.”
“Therefore, the Archivist of the United States cannot legally publish the Equal Rights Amendment. As the leaders of the National Archives, we will abide by these legal precedents and support the constitutional framework in which we operate.”
The reason is simple. The underlying argument is utterly ridiculous.
As I have previously written, the ERA is as dead as Dillinger.
The deadline for ratification of the ERA was set for March 22, 1979 — allowing seven years to secure the required approval by three-quarters of the states, or 38 states. It failed to do so. Even worse, four states — Nebraska, Tennessee, Idaho, Kentucky — rescinded their prior ratifications and a fifth, South Dakota, set its ratification to expire if the ERA was not adopted by the 1979 deadline.
Kentucky also had an additional problem because its Democratic lieutenant governor vetoed the resolution rescinding the ratification when the governor was out of town. However, Article V speaks of ratifications by state legislatures.
Notably, during the extended period, not a single state was added. Even assuming that the five states could be counted despite the votes to rescind their ratifications, the ERA was still three states short when it missed the second deadline.
Democrats then insisted that states could not rescind their votes, even before ratification was finalized. So, Democrats and then-President Carter simply extended the deadline to June 30, 1982. However, in 1981, a federal district court ruled in Idaho v. Freeman that Congress could not extend the ERA’s ratification deadline. (The Supreme Court later stayed that order but then declared the matter moot.)
In 2021 federal Judge Rudolph Contreras ruled that it would have been “absurd” for the Archivist to disregard the deadline and unilaterally add the unratified amendment to the Constitution. On appeal, a unanimous D.C. Circuit panel rejected the appeal of Illinois and Nevada that the Archivist should be ordered to publish the ERA, holding “The States’ argument that the proposing clause is akin to the inoperative prefatory clause in a bill is unpersuasive…because if that were the case, then the specification of the mode of ratification in every amendment in our nation’s history would also be inoperative.”
None of this matters to the defenders of democracy who ignored the votes in these states and dismissed constitutional deadlines and procedures. Harvard Law Professors Laurence Tribe and Kathleen Sullivan ran a column declaring “The ERA is Now Law!” as if amplification and exclamation points would somehow make it true. (Tribe was the same constitutional expert cited by Biden as support for extending his eviction moratorium, a move quickly declared unconstitutional. Tribe also insisted that Trump could be charged with the attempted murder of former Vice President Mike Pence and that the law was clear “without any doubt, beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond any doubt”).
Notably, Biden did not issue an executive order to the archivist as many activists wanted. The reason is simple: the White House knew that it could be challenged in court and would quickly collapse under judicial review. They would prefer Biden to declare Caesar-like that we have a new amendment and treat it as a fact.
With the declaration, Biden gave “the last full measure of devotion” to the radical left of his party. It was a pandering and frankly pathetic moment for a president who is currently one of the least popular presidents in leaving office.
His action on the ERA is precisely why he is viewed as a “failed” president. Biden has always sacrificed principle for the politics of the moment. This was a participation trophy given to activists that lacked any substance or basis. It is also why voters saw Biden as the greater threat to democracy than Trump.
It is chilling to think that Biden actually believes this nonsense and sees dead amendments walking around the White House. After all, insiders have described the White House in the final days as a virtual “morgue.” Yet, the truth may be even scarier: He simply does not care. He sees dead amendments in the hope of restoring life to his legacy. Both, however, now belong to the ranks of the corpus corpus mortuum.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
On Sunday afternoon the big guy can enter an assisted living facility and Dr. Jill can have conjugal visits. How romantic. And he can answer all the questions that the medical staff ask him.
Why would Jill Biden be with trump in an assisted living facility? I have heard way more crazy talk from trump these past 8 years than Biden. trump shows much more decline in his mental abilities. So why would Jill be with trump? And conjugal visits? You are really out of it. trump has been found liable for sexual abuse. Is there any woman that would be in a room with him alone?
Even his wife won’t sleep with him.
Stupid and irrelevant comment.
No words. Just none. The modern DNC is despicable.
With his looney statement about the “28th amendment” Biden has now killed the whole concept of misinformation:
https://twitchy.com/amy-curtis/2025/01/18/the-misinformation-argument-is-officially-dead-and-the-equal-rights-amendment-killed-it-n2406881
I think Biden is like the new acronym for U.F.O.’s, that being U.A.P. Only in Biden’s case, it doesn’t stand for Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena, it stands for Unhinged American President.
keep them bare foot and pregnant repeal era.
It has to actually be law before it can be repealed.
…or import millions and millions and millions of unassimilable MexAfriAsians!
Speaker Mike Johnson revealed to Bari Weiss on her “Honestly” podcast that he knew Joe Biden was not running the country as early as January 2024. As the new Speaker of the House, his repeated requests to meet with the US President, considering the Speaker is 2nd in line of command, were rebuffed by White House staff. When he finally met with him after the Speaker went to the media to complain about the situation, he saw and heard first hand, in a private meeting with Biden, that he was not running the country. He left the meeting with “fear and trembling”, a quote from Søren Kierkegaard’s book of the same name
watch the video interview of Speaker Johnson by Bari at the FP link
Confirmed: the Democrats are the people of the lie, to quote Dr. M. Scott Peck, MD author of a best seller book with the same phrase
When Mike Johnson Knew Joe Biden Was Not in Charge
https://www.thefp.com/p/when-mike-johnson-knew-joe-biden-not-in-charge
Interesting that Johnson failed to use his Speaker position to publicize that extremely dangerous situation and force something to be done about it. Does that merely reflect his spinelessness, or do we need to find out whose interests he actually serves?
While some may see this as something more than the fallacy it is, I see it as another example of Biden’s cognitive decline and inability to understand what he’s doing. This is another nail in the coffin of negating everything that this corrupt gangster has done, pardons and all. America wants equal justice and accountability!
Traveler,
Exactly! He doesn’t know what is going on going on. He is like a drunk driver. He is having his keys taken away. Hopefully he won’t push the nuclear button before he leaves.
Hopefully
The problem with the ERA, when it was sent to the States for ratification, was twofold. First, Americans understood that equal protection under the law was already, for men, for women, for everyone, the law of the land, so this proposed Amendment seemed redundant and unnecessary. Secondly, Americans were (correctly) highly suspicious that this unnecessary and redundant Amendment was actually a lawyerly trick, whose unintended (or intended) consequences could not be predicted.
Ditto to Karl Marx’s antithetical and anti-Constitutional “Reconstruction Amendments” which are adverse to the “republic” given to Americans by Ben Franklin et al.
__________________________________________________________
“The workingmen of Europe…consider…that it fell to…Abraham Lincoln…to lead his country through…the RECONSTRUCTION of a social world.”
– Karl Marx Letter to Abraham Lincoln, 1865
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The Constitution provides for the States to determine who votes based on the criteria of those very States, and “equal protection” was provided to all “citizens” in 1789.
People affected by Karl Marx’s antithetical “Reconstruction Amendments,” which were bizarre to the constitutional prosperity and freedom of Americans, may not have been admitted to America by legislation to receive the attendant benefits and entitlements.
Even though very few respond to George, I hope there is widespread support in the blog community for the 13th amendment, 14th amendment, and 15th amendment.
With a gun to America’s head.
Karl Marx had a long reach.
There is only one question.
In a society of laws, did the law support Lincoln?
The Constitution did not and does not prohibit secession.
Please cite the Constitution for a prohibition of secession.
That is all; that is the law.
Lincoln was unconstitutional from beginning to end.
Everything Lincoln did after his unconstitutional denial of secession was and remains unconstitutional by extension.
American freedom lasted only 71 years.
The Supreme Court disagrees with you on secession — see Texas v White (1869).
And the corrupt Supreme Court of 1973 ruled that abortion was a constitutional right.
* notvrealky, it was commerce issue.
James Madison rejected a proposal which was made at the 1787 Constitutional Convention to grant the new federal government the specific power to suppress a seceding state.
“A Union of states containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a state would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.”
– James Madison
_______________
“Where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy.”
– Thomas Jefferson
________________
“[Where powers were assumed by Lincoln which had not been delegated, a nullification of the act, Lincoln’s assumption, is the rightful remedy.”
– [Thomas Jefferson]
God Bless our wise Founders and Framers of the Constitution. Even Hamilton, who is not one of my favorites, recognized the dangers to trying to prohibit the government exercising powers the government had never been delegated. Hamilton predicted that (paraphrasing here) evil unscrupulous men would use this to abuse and usurp powers. Hamilton was prescient, we see how governments have used the BoR to violate those very prohibitions.
George, I thank you for your wise comments based on the Constitution, our Constitutional laws, and science & biology.
So what?
SCOTUS is not the highest authority in the Country.
SCOTUS is capable of making errors, and it has — many errors, many times….some were very, very bad errors.
“SECURE THE BLESSINGS OF LIBERTY TO OURSELVES AND OUR POSTERITY”
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
– The American Founders
You just hate America.
Isn’t that the real issue, comrade?
Living Proof that Biden has drunk to much Coolaid of the past 4 years. Delusional with the self-proliferation of ‘Fake News’ he has become consumed with the Polonius character (Shakespeare’s Hamlet) he had portrayed over the years.
He declares that ‘All things being Equal’ (ERA), that He is the most felonious of All.
A fitting Curtain Call to the end of a pitiful tragedy indeed. His last Play.
In the interests of full disclosure, I argued publicly in favor of the ERA back when I was a young socialist. I have long since learned the error of my ways.
The first problem we had in advocating for the ERA was that radical feminists were spearheading the issue. I learned the hard way that to be successful in politics, one has to be very careful about mission creep, and the radical feminists were making themselves lightning rods on every issue one could imagine. They seemed to relish making enemies where none were required.
The second problem was that liberal judges weren’t helping either. They were finding “penumbras” of rights in all kinds of things, but somehow these “discovered” rights were only favorable to them–never to conservatives or taxpayers or people of faith. Thus, the ERA came to be seen as a legal Pandora’s Box. Not everyone bought the idea that Pandora was a Democrat.
Finally, liberalism by the late 70’s was becoming a dirty word due to a multitude of policy failures and social upheavals. Leftists now refer to themselves as “progressives” precisely because they stank up the word “liberal” many decades before. Meddling with meaning is a hallmark of the Left. Today’s Left are not progressive. They’re communists and they like it.
I will note that there is no place in the approving of Amendments for the President, since the President does not sign them into law. Amendments are voted upon by Congress and ratified by the State Legislatures. But I don’t think that minor issue matters to the soon-to-be former President.
If President Biden feels that the Equal Rights Amendment is in effect, I am curious about his interpretation of the Amendment. Does he now feel that it enables men to participate in sporting events strictly limited to women, under the idea that they are given equal protections for their thoughts of what gender they are?
Finally, I won’t get into my personal opinion of Laurence Tribe. Instead, I will describe what appears to be his thought process. First, he decides on how a law reads, without regard to the actual words that are in the law. Then, he finds a law he can twist to his desired meaning. Third, he cites his re-worded “law” to be an actual legal interpretation of a real law. Fourth, he reaches a conclusion that his interpretation is 100% correct. Voila! You have just witnessed the creation of a new law. And while I agree that every lawyer is entitled to use his or her own interpretation of any law to the benefit of his or her client in court, there is someone else in the courtroom that is the ultimate decider of what the law says and means. And it’s not Professor Tribe.
There is a secret place within the United States, a special land that is everywhere and nowhere, a perfect place, inhabited by Lefties of all colors, stripes, and spots. That hidden land was known to Aristophanes as Cloud Cuckoo Land🤣🤣🤣
Democrats will win no friends with the ERA. It was primarily women who opposed it for fear it would further empower males, fathers, in divorce custodial battles. (Many states have traditionally favored motherhood.) Not an issue with same-sex marriages though, is it? Which is to say, gays with children typically have “more rights” in divorce than heterosexuals do, this in the supposed land of equality?
Just when you think Biden couldn’t possibly be any stupider, he comes out with stuff like this. And then when you’re thinking nobody could possibly be stupider than Biden, the Leftist trolls come out and double down.
Abortion is the homicide of an entirely separate person.
It’s not your body.
It’s not your choice.
Women are merely nature’s and God’s caretakers.
The fact that the embryo, fetus, and baby persist constitutes a statement by that person that it desires and intends to continue its effort, to develop, and to grow—that it wants to live.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
And here are some bonus scientific facts that prove it’s not just an organ or part of the mother.
During its early stages of development, the placenta of the unborn child secretes neurokinin B-containing phosphocoline molecules, which protects the child from detection by its mother’s immune system, because it can be interpreted as a foreign body and is subject to attack. This is because the fetus is of non-identical genetic material to the mother due to their different DNA.
Also present in the unborn child are lymphocytic suppressor cells which stop interleukin 2 (IL2) cells from signalling cytotoxic T cells to kill the child. The purpose of IL2 cells is to distinguish between self and non-self (parts of the mother and foreign parts). The lymphocytic cells would not need to inhibit the response of the cytotoxic T cells if the IL2 did not signal the feuts as a foreign body. This would not occur if it was one of her own organs because the response would not be initiated.
An organ does not have its own organs. The fetal heartbeat begins at around 22 days after fertilisation as I said earlier, and brain waves are detected at about six weeks, which means the unborn child has a heart and a brain. At seven weeks, all other organs are present, although not fully developed, which would mean not only did the mother have an organ with different DNA to her, but this organ also has its own organ systems, and so the mother has an extra heart, brain, stomach, liver, etc.
– Emma Greenland-Broadsmith
What a beautiful comment, thank you.
Thank you! I am saving this for future debates!
“Women are merely nature’s and God’s caretakers.”
Women as mere brood mares and as chattel of the state. How very Medieval of you.
And though abortion is not primarily a scientific issue (it’s a rights issue), you might want to check your anatomy. There are biological parts called a womb, placenta, umbilical cord — all of which are elements of an individual woman’s body.
Nature and biology dictate that human females bear children.
It is not a rights issue as there is no Right to terminate an innocent human being.
The anatomical parts you name are not part of the woman, except for the womb. The placenta and umbilical cord are attached to wall of the uterus — they are not part of the uterus. Along with the amniotic sac, these temporary organs are inside the woman’s womb. Placenta attached to the wall of the uterus; umbilical cord attached to the placenta on one end and the baby at the other end; the developing fetus inside the amniotic sac. All three of these temporary organs come out at delivery.
A woman has none of these temporary organs if she is not pregnant. After she delivers, she has none of these organs. If one has to assign ownership of these organs, I would say they belong to the fetus. They exist only when a woman is pregnant.
“Nature and biology dictate that human females bear children.”
Nature doesn’t “dictate” anything. It doesn’t dictate that a person walk, see, think, get pregnant.
It’s power-lusters like you who dictate that a woman get pregnant — or else.
What an absurd response. You need better reading comprehension.
What do you call it if not Nature and biology?
It absolutely is Nature and biology which dictate that females bear the children. Humans don’t control that, biology does.
Not a single person says Nature and biology FORCE an individual female to GET pregnant.
It is the female of our species which can become pregnant, then carries a baby, then gives birth.
None of our laws FORCE a woman to get pregnant.
Our laws PROTECT the innocent fetus once conceived.
You are ridiculous.
Damn, that was the most BRUTAL take-down of Biden I have ever seen, Tribe and Sullivan (Kathleen-I FAILED the CA BAr Exam!-Sullivan) too.
The Constitution was written to be equal among men and people enjoy the freedom of choice, discretion, preference, discrimination, etc.
Success or failure are not guaranteed by the Constitution.
All men were created equal and after creation, men make and experience their own success or failure.
Government may not order acceptance, rejection, love, or despisement.
That one does not appreciate a person’s choice does not bear.
People must adapt to the outcomes of freedom.
Freedom does not adapt to people…
Dictatorship does.
* May I remind all, men need copious amounts of estrogen when they become women and having discriminatory laws for citizens vs non-citizen is an outrage.
What tangled webs….
* Joe is and has been on copious amounts of Kettamine (sp.) He walks through doors in different worlds.
I cannot attest to the 28th of 50 years ago. Gender orientation nor preferences does not exist. The USA has not adopted atheism nor Darwin as moral principles. I can attest to that. National security is paramount , I can attest to that. It’s a really nice place.
“having discriminatory laws for citizens vs non-citizen is an outrage”
Ensuring that only citizens are within the purview of those laws should resolve that issue.
Biden likely didn’t declare anything.
Maybe he signed a paper a young, pimply-faced, ignoramus activist set in front of him between naps and ice cream.
Depressing to think that these are the twits who have been running the country into the ground for the last four years.
I am just relieved they didn’t manage to start WW III.
They won’t quit unfortunately.
They still have roughly 48 hours to start WWIII and don’t think that they are not working on that project as we speak….
Whimsical,
Agreed. It’s a tense 48 hours.
I’m not inclined to think we’re out of the woods just because Mr. Magoo is leaving DC.
“America First” is a fraud. Our government is, and will likely remain, “Israel First”.
I’ll keep prepping.
-John Underwood
Tyler, TX
Truth be known, secession is not prohibited by the Constitution and is fully constitutional. Lincoln’s denial of secession was unconstitutional and must have been struck down by the Supreme Court just as Justice Taney struck down Lincoln’s unconstitutional imposition of habeas corpus. Every act of Lincoln subsequent to his unconstitutional denial of secession was similarly unconstitutional, including the improperly ratified “Reconstruction Amendments,” which were the result of an unconstitutional war and brutal post-war military occupation conducted by Lincoln’s socialist-cum-progressive-cum-communist successors. Reprehensible slavery must have been legislatively abrogated according to American fundamental and statutory law. Interestingly, the Supreme Court recently acted retroactively by 50 years to correct the corrupt act of the Supreme Court of 1973 according to American fundamental and statutory law and return abortion to the States. Consideration must be given to correcting the unconstitutional acts of Lincoln et al.
George– “Truth be known, secession is not prohibited by the Constitution and is fully constitutional.”
—
It’s an interesting issue. I think Lincoln’s position was not that secession was unconstitutional but when done it must be done with the same legal formalities used by states to enter into the compact, with a known proportion agreeing to it. In that respect it is like a contract with multiple parties bound to the whole and to each other. But when law fails bayonets may decide.
“I think Lincoln’s position was… it must be done with the same legal formalities used by states to enter into the compact”
If that was the case, Lincoln must have communicated those requirements to the States wishing to secede. Do you have any evidence that anything of the sort happened? Because I have never come across this contention, or evidence for it, in many years of fairly intensive reading on the subject.
Read Carl Sandburg’s “Lincoln: The War Year”. I think you may find it there
If that were the case then the Framers would have included that requirement in the Constitution. The option to add states and to use two or more states or parts of states to form a new state is included.
Article IV Section 3 clause 1
“New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.”
Again, I point to the 10th Amendment. Jefferson saw the 10th as the foundation of the Constitution.
“I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That ‘all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.’”
Ighmiel: “no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other state….”
West Virginia
What does that have to do with the Constitution not delegating power to the feds to prevent secession, the Constitution not prohibiting states from seceding, nor the Constitution setting up rules for state secession?
P.S. My name begins with an L — it’s lowercase so many think it’s a capital I.
🙂
West Virginia was formed exactly as the constitution prescribes, with the consent of the Virginia legislature, which at that time was sitting in Wheeling.
I appreciate your position.
You did not cite the Constitution for a prohibition of secession.
That cannot be done.
Some believe that:
Secession is not prohibited; therefore, secession is prohibited.
Which, of course, is a non sequitur.
Secession has occurred throughout the world throughout the centuries.
Secession is fully constitutional.
Another excellent comment, thank you again.
I note that the Supreme Court in Texas v White (1869) held that States do not have a constitutional right to secede.
Anon– Texas v White ruled that states do not have the right unilaterally to secede. A process with the consent of the other states as Lincoln suggested is a different matter.
Worth noting, if a state does secede unilaterally it no longer recognizes decisions of the Court.
California is making a good argument that could persuade the rest of us to say begone. It’s becoming another South Africa…poor, sick and stupid.
James Madison rejected a proposal which was made at the 1787 Constitutional Convention to grant the new federal government the specific power to suppress a seceding state.
“A Union of states containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a state would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.”
– James Madison
_______________
“Where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy.”
– Thomas Jefferson
________________
“[Where powers were assumed by Lincoln which had not been delegated, a nullification of the act, Lincoln’s assumption, is the rightful remedy.”
– [Thomas Jefferson]
Please cite the Constitution for a prohibition of secession.
Lincoln had no legal or constitutional basis.
And the corrupt Supreme Court of 1973 ruled that abortion was a constitutional right.
Dear Mr. Turley, thank you for allowing folks to post various ideas here. I would say the most hate filled commentator here is “Gigi” and “Dennis” is a close second. “Gigi said that MAGA people are in the minority. (?) Who i she trying to kid? If this was the case, Mr. Trump would not be returning to the White House is such glorious fashion. I am glad that the ceremony will be at the Capital to prove to the Left, he does belong in D.C.
It’s not “hate” to push back against lies. Trump has less than a 50% approval rating-among the lowest of incoming presidents in recent history. He only “won” because gullible people believed his lies—particularly the lie that he would immediately bring down the cost of groceries.
would you like to guess what your approval rating is on this blog site?