Statement from NOW President Toni Van Pelt:
WASHINGTON, D.C. – NOW applauds Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul and Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford for filing a civil rights suit against the Trump Administration to recognize that following Virginia’s historic vote to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment, the ERA is now the 28th amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The suit argues that the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has no authority over this matter and the Trump Administration cannot cling to language that appears in the 1972 preamble to the ERA that set an artificial timeline for passage. As AG Herring pointed out, the 27th amendment was ratified by individual states beginning in 1789, and ratification was not completed until 1992.
Women, including NOW’s dedicated grassroots activists, have long been working for constitutional equality, marching for equality and, as the most recent midterm elections showed so dramatically, voting for equality. Donald Trump and William Barr are distorting our nation’s laws to suit their discriminatory and misogynist political agenda.
They want to shred the Constitution. Women want to make it stronger.
Contact
Kimberly Hayes, Press Secretary , press@now.org , 202-570-4745