It’s Been 90 Years: Time to Pass the ERA (actually, 91 years)

[Jim Lane]

15. I have the decision. I meant a link about what effect the ERA would have.

My point is that the ERA would not write legal equality for women into the Constitution. It would affect only discrimination by governments. Discrimination by private entities, such as Hobby Lobby, would still be on the same footing as racially segregated lunch counters during the Jim Crow era.

I agree with you about changing the composition of the Court. That's the most promising avenue for overruling Hobby Lobby, as well as the campaign-spending cases and the evisceration of the Voting Rights Act.

One difference is that the proposed amendment allowing regulation of campaign spending would clearly overturn Citizens United and McCutcheon. Even the five conservatives would be forced to yield to such an amendment. The same is not true of the ERA and Hobby Lobby. Notable is that Ginsburg, in her dissent, did not argue that the Equal Protection Clause was a basis for rejecting Hobby Lobby's position, even though she had written the opinion for the Court in United States v. Virginia, invoking the Equal Protection Clause to overturn a denial of equal rights to women.