President Biden declared on Friday that he believes that the Equal Rights Amendment has met the requirements of ratification and therefore is now part of the Constitution, but he declined to order the government to finalize the process by officially publishing it.
“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,” Mr. Biden said in a statement.
Under the Constitution, however, the president has no direct role in approving amendments and his statement has no legal force by itself. The archivist of the United States, a Biden appointee, has refused to formally publish the amendment on the grounds that it has not met the requirements to become part of the Constitution.
Thomas Jipping, a senior legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said that Mr. Biden’s announcement amounted to nothing more than his personal beliefs. He noted that Mr. Biden’s Justice Department had defended the archivist in a legal opinion, arguing that no “relevant legal authority” had been identified establishing that the amendment had been adopted past the congressional deadline.
“If he wants to personally believe that, that’s fine, but it has no legal effect whatsoever, and all of the evidence says that he’s wrong,” Mr. Jipping said. “It’s like talking into the air — it has absolutely no effect beyond symbolism.”
Aides said that Mr. Biden was not ordering the archivist, Colleen Shogan, to reverse her position and publish the amendment, as advocates have urged him to do. Asked for comment on Friday, the archivist’s office referred back to previous statements refusing to publish the amendment, indicating that Dr. Shogan would not change her stance.
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