Sign the Petition

Dear STATE Office of Legislative Counsel,

In January 2020, Virginia became the 38th state to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment making the “ERA” the newest amendment to the U.S. Constitution. There is a case pending in federal court to affirm ratification. The suit was filed by Nevada, Illinois, and Virginia.

While there may be some uncertainty at the moment, our STATE should be prepared for the likelihood that our US Constitution has a 28th Amendment, which reads in part: “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” To that end, I write to ask the Office of Legislative Counsel to tackle a question for me. Can OLC review STATE’s statutes and administrative code for compliance with the 28th Amendment?

I suspect this review would have two components:

A) sex-specific language (.i.e. “policeman” instead of “police officer”); and

B) sex-specific treatment/requirement (i.e., requirement on a mother but not a father).

For example, the Illinois Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability (CGFA) recently prepared a report similar to the one I am requesting from OLC. Arizona lawyers prepared a study of their laws. North Carolina legislators announced the initial findings of their audit in January. Previously, some states have conducted similar language reviews, such as Hawaii in 1992.

To be clear, I do not propose that OLC look for “bias” in our state’s laws since that is a subjective question and may require a legal opinion. Instead, I pose an objective question: Will OLC look at STATE’s statutes and administrative code to identify the location of gender-specific words in our laws (i.e., a Westlaw Report with the subject words highlighted).

As you well know, distinctions are not automatically prohibited by law, but some classifications require higher scrutiny (such as race, sex and religion). Having an understanding of where sex-based distinctions currently exist (if they exist) in our statutes and codes, is helpful to me in my work for constituents.

I look forward to your response.

Yours,

State Representative
State Senator