New archivist says Equal Rights Amendment is still dead

Supporters of the Equal Rights Amendment won’t be getting any help from the new head of the U.S. Archives, who says he won’t be the one to declare it officially a part of the Constitution.

Bradford Wilson started as the national archivist Friday, putting him in charge of maintaining the government’s records. One of those duties is maintaining an official compilation of the Constitution and its amendments.

ERA supporters have been demanding the archivist declare the ERA to have been ratified by enough states to make it the 28th Amendment.

But Mr. Wilson, in his confirmation hearing in the Senate, said he won’t do that. He said his predecessor, nominated by President Biden, concluded the amendment hadn’t met the ratification threshold, and Mr. Wilson said that was the correct conclusion.

“I agree with their opinion and I intend to stick with it,” he told Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who’d pressed Mr. Wilson on the matter.

The ERA was proposed by Congress to the states in 1972. At the time, Congress set a 1979 deadline for the necessary 38 states to ratify it.

Just 35 had done so by that deadline. Congress approved a three-year extension of the deadline, but no new states ratified, and some states approved resolutions rescinding their ratifications.

But an effort to revive the amendment was made in the last decade, with backers going to Illinois, Nevada and Virginia — all states that hadn’t previously ratified. They voted to do so, arguing that the 1979 and 1982 deadlines were invalid.

They also argued that states can’t rescind their ratifications.

They’ve tried several avenues to force recognition of the ERA.

Court cases trying to get judicial recognition have failed. And a proclamation by Mr. Biden that the ERA was in effect was ignored.

That left attempts to pressure the National Archives to recognize the amendment.

There is precedent for such an action, after the archives recognized the 27th Amendment in 1992.

That amendment was one of the original 12 amendments proposed to the states by the first Congress. Just 10 of those original 12 were ratified at the time, becoming the Bill of Rights.

The other two lay dormant until the 1980s, when a student in Texas, Gregory Watson, argued that an amendment limiting Congress’s ability to raise its pay was still alive and could be ratified if enough states joined.

Enough states did so, and the archives certified the amendment.

The question at that time was whether there was a time limit on ratification.

The deadlines and revocations are different, and trickier, issues.

Mr. Wilson told senators he wished the archivist didn’t have to play a role in such thorny “constitutional controversies.”

But he said his predecessor, Colleen Shogan, was following the advice of the Justice Department in declining to declare the ERA part of the Constitution. Mr. Wilson said that was also the view of the deputy archivist, a career official.

He said he agreed with their read.