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To the editor:
I read the letter from Marjie DeFede in the March 3 edition of the paper ("Put women in the Constitution.") She is certainly entitled to her opinions but not her own facts. She complains about equal rights for women and criticizes men in general and Republicans and Catholic jurists in particular. Roe v. Wade was a bad decision, and in his later years, Justice Thurgood Marshall, who wrote the opinion, stated it was the worst decision he ever wrote.
She states that then-President Donald Trump blocked publicizing the Equal Rights Amendment into the Constitution and that President Joe Biden has not done it either although stating he would. She then says that "a MAGA-led Congress," presumably Republicans, would challenge that and take it to the Supreme Court where conservative Catholics would throw it out. First, the last I knew, Republicans did not control Congress and they are not all MAGA Republicans. Heck, they can't even control themselves. Second, she obviously does not like conservatives or Catholics, especially if they are wearing judicial robes. It is apparent that she only wants liberal non-Catholics on the bench to rule according to her own beliefs.
Finally, DeFede needs to take a course in constitutional law. No president can on his or her own amend the constitution, no matter how much he or she may want to do so. Amendments can only be accomplished according to Article V of the Constitution and it states that either two-thirds of both houses of Congress, when they deem it necessary, may propose an amendment to it, or on application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the states, there may be called a constitutional convention for purposes of considering the proposed amendment, which only passes upon the affirmative vote of the legislatures of three-fourths of the states.
So save your time and energy writing or texting Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris on this matter, as it would be a waste of time. What Biden could do on his own with no consent from anyone, is shut down the border. But, according to him and the Democrat leaders in Congress, there is no border crisis. Maybe a text to do this would do some good, but I doubt it.
John J. Mascio
Steubenville