Biden's Legacy

 It was always kind of embarrassing when people on Twitter called Biden "the best President of my lifetime" considering many of them were old enough to be there for the Great Society and few recent presidents have a legacy as powerful as the Affordable Care Act. I'll concede that Bill Clinton's legacy is complicated by more than his sexual immorality. Still, he was a pretty impressive president.

Biden's legacy was riding on Harris' victory. If she won, he would vault a little further up the "rankings" as empowering the first female president by selflessly stepping aside. Now, his decision to hang in the race until it became obvious he would get smoked will hang over his head and legacy. The likely only way that Democrats would've won this fall is if they had nominated someone from outside the Administration - one of those Midwestern governors.

However, presidents have one last stab at legacy writing as the days of one's term winds down. Trump's legacy would have been January 6th if Merrick Garland had been alive, but alas.

One of the perverse things I heard during and after the campaign was that Trump's felony conviction would help him among some voters. It seemed deeply racist, but...maybe? Trump has made a few nods towards pardoning real people, but as per usual with Trump, most of his efforts have come to the benefit of his rich friends.

Biden has started issuing pardons and clemency, and many of these are around non-defunct marijuana laws. Taking some tangible steps to alleviate the stigma of non-violent drug offenders - especially around marijuana - is a nice step. 

Biden will get no credit for it, but still.

More interesting, to me, is Kirsten Gillibrand's idea to simply declare that the Equal Rights Amendment has been ratified. The logic is interesting. The ERA was sent to the states in 1972 where it lingered without accruing the necessary 3/4ths approval. Some states still ratified after the seven year window closed. The seven year window, however, is a Congressional limitation and not part of the Constitutional procedure for ratification. The 27th Amendment, relating to Congressional pay raises, lingered for almost two centuries without an expiration date before being ratified in the '90s. 

The merits of Biden instructing the National Archives to accept the ERA as the 28th Amendment are clear, even if many of its provisions have been folded into our understanding of the 14th Amendment. It also explicitly says "sex" so protections for transgender people are not included. 

So, it's not 100% clear that the ERA would significantly alter anything real.

What we can guarantee, though, is a counter-reaction from the the Republican Party. They will likely fight it because of Cleek's Law. There is a decent chance it will go down in flames when it reaches the SCOTUS.

And that's the point. 

Democrats are typically not very adept at these sort of messaging stratagems. The best ones lean into pre-existing perceptions of the party. That's why Harris' "transition surgery for prisoners" hurt her. It's not a big deal, but it reinforced perceptions that she was an out-of-touch San Francisco liberal, even her positions on many other things were not that far left. 

Forcing Republicans to kill a banal statement of equal rights for women seems like such a no-brainer.

So they either reflexively attack a worthy addition to the Constitution, or Biden gets one last small victory in a career that was remarkably supportive of women.