The New York Attorney General’s office filed an appeal yesterday against Justice Daniel Doyle’s decision that the state’s Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), also known as Proposition 1, violates Article 19 of the state Constitution. A panel of five Rochester judges will hear the case in the Fourth Department’s Appellate Division. New York civil rights attorney Bobbie Anne Cox told The Epoch Times that “What’s at stake in this lawsuit is the rule of law and the will of the people.” If the amendment is approved, it would add eleven new discrimination categories to the state Constitution.
The New York Legislature voted on Proposition 1 on July 1, 2022, and New York Attorney General Letitia James issued a written opinion in support of the amendment on July 6, 2022. Ms. Cox added that “It’s really not political because although my lead plaintiff, Assemblywoman Marjorie Byrnes, is Republican, my other plaintiffs are Democrats and I’m a registered Democrat.
Several elected officials have been named in the lawsuit, including Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins, Senate Minority Leader Robert Ortt, Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, Assembly Minority Leader William Barclay, and the New York State Board of Elections. Ms. James is undeterred in her support of Proposition 1 as a way to codify abortion access rights.
However, socially conservative groups such as the Coalition to Protect Kids New York are vowing to fight the amendment because it grants protected status statewide for, not only abortion access, but also based on age and gender identity. If approved, Proposition 1 would ban schools from disclosing to parents that their children are trying to gender transition.
William Jacobson, founder of Legal Insurrection Foundation (LIF) and clinical law professor at Cornell Law School, sees Subsection B of the proposed amendment as a diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) concept that would impact anti-discrimination laws if approved. LIF is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) in Rhode Island.
If Ms. James wins on appeal, the initiative adding new discrimination categories to the state Constitution will appear on November’s general election ballot.
