WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Monday, a New York assemblywoman and citizens of New York filed an appeal to New York’s highest court to enforce basic constitutional requirements before an anti-woman proposed constitutional amendment appears on the state’s ballot in November. Byrnes v. The Senate of the State of New York, backed by Independent Women’s Law Center (IWLC) and Independent Women’s Forum (IWF), is a consequential challenge to whether a Democrat trifecta can simply forgo clear legal requirements before ramming constitutional amendments onto the ballot.
The New York legislature circumvented the constitutionally required process, by skipping a required legal analysis, to force the anti-woman ballot initiative on New York women and families. The trial court agreed with IWF that the legislature acted unlawfully, but the appellate court refused to even consider the question, wrongly concluding that the challenge was not timely. IWF already requested New York’s highest court review the case as a constitutional matter, but the court declined to do so. This appeal asks New York’s highest court to review the appellate court’s misguided procedural ruling, which purposefully aims to avoid the truth: that the New York legislature acted unlawfully.
Here, the unlawfully proposed amendment is the anti-woman so-called “Equal Rights Amendment” (ERA), which would threaten parental rights and deprive women of privacy and safety. The proposed language would amend the state constitution to include protections for “gender identity” and “gender expression,” thus giving any individual the claim to “self-identify” into women-only spaces—including domestic abuse shelters, children’s locker rooms, sororities, sports, and prisons. Moreover, by including protections for “age,” the ERA threatens parents’ rights to raise their children according to his or her sex.
Beth Parlato, senior legal advisor for Independent Women’s Law Center, said, “The New York courts just abdicated their primary responsibility, upholding the state constitution. Faced with a clearly unconstitutional ballot measure, they dodged review by inventing a fake procedural hurdle. The harm will fall on all New Yorkers, but primarily women. The ballot measure elevates a man’s right to enter women’s spaces and requires schools to transition children without parental say. It was forced on the upcoming November ballot outside constitutional requirements, and New York appellate courts know it.”