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First We Marched, Then We Voted, Now We Sue

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

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NOW Celebrates ERA Ratification Day in Virginia

Statement by NOW President Toni Van Pelt:

RICHMOND, VA — Today’s formal ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) in Virginia is a cause for celebration.  This day has been a long, long time coming, and credit for this historic victory is due to the new leadership of the Virginia legislature—and the groundswell of feminist activists and voters who put them there. 

After successfully passing the state House and Senate on Jan. 15th, today’s crossover vote makes Virginia officially the 38th state needed to ratify the ERA—passing the three-fourths of the states threshold the U.S. Constitution requires for final adoption of an amendment.  However, obstacles to certification remain, including an artificial timeline imposed in the preamble to the ERA in 1972. Now Majority Leader Mitch McConnell won’t let the Senate vote on a bill to remove that timeline, S.J.Res.6, even though it has two Republican co-sponsors, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins. 

While the timeline removal bill is not necessary—legal analysts have asserted that Article V of the Constitution does not permit the imposition of deadlines on the ratification process—it would provide extra insurance as the ERA certification process goes forward. NOW calls on Congress to act on S.J.Res.6 and correct the Constitution’s most glaring omission.  It is simply never too late for equality.  

A democracy that fails to include women in its founding document is a failed democracy.  But today, Virginia women have shown how to rise up and put equality, reproductive rights and women’s justice at the front of the political agenda. 

Contact

Kimberly Hayes, Press Secretary , press@now.org , 202-570-4745

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Trump Uses Religion to Excuse Discrimination

Statement from NOW President Toni Van Pelt:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Trump Administration is shredding every Obama-era equal rights protection it can find—but they’re especially fierce when it comes to promoting evangelical extremism. Our democracy depends on a secular government that doesn’t elevate any single religion, maintains the separation between church and state and protects our freedom from religious-based oppression and discrimination. 

New rules advanced by nine federal agencies rescind the Obama executive order that required faith-based providers to notify beneficiaries of their religious nature and their right to get the same services elsewhere.  This move would open the door to even more federal largesse to Christian groups hand-picked by Mike Pence and Donald Trump. 

After the Supreme Court ruled in the 2014 Hobby Lobby case that a private, religiously oriented company could obtain a religious exemption from the contraceptive mandate, the Trump Administration now wants to go even farther—allowing even publicly held companies to suddenly “get religion” as an excuse to deny women health care. 

Religion has been routinely used to justify and enforce some of society’s most hurtful and egregious failures, from slavery in the United States, segregation in the Deep South, treating women as if they are property owned by men, and ongoing discrimination against LGBTQIA+ people today. 

NOW opposes these latest attempts to further exclude, subjugate, and discriminate against women on the basis of faith to what are essentially faithless beliefs.

Contact

Kimberly Hayes, Press Secretary, press@now.org, 202-570-4745

Florida NOW

Florida NOW’s purpose is to take action through intersectional grassroots activism to promote feminist ideals, lead societal change, eliminate discrimination, and achieve and protect the equal rights of all women and girls.

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