ALBANY, N.Y. — Democrats pushed for a constitutional amendment on the ballot in New York, believing it could embolden liberals eager to protect abortion rights. Republicans now hope the same amendment will light a fire among people angry about transgender athletes participating in girls’ and women’s sports.
Voters will decide Nov. 5 whether to approve the state’s proposed “Equal Rights Amendment,” which has already been the subject of a lawsuit over its broad language. The amendment, dubbed “Proposition 1” on the ballot, has emerged as one of the more unusual ideological battles of the 2024 election season, in part because of disagreements over what it will do if passed.
On paper, the proposed amendment would expand a section of the state constitution that now says a person cannot be denied civil rights because of their race, creed or religion. The new language will also prohibit discrimination based on national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes, or “reproductive health care and autonomy.”
While much of the coverage of the amendment has focused on how it could protect abortion rights, Republicans have been waging a messaging campaign warning that barring discrimination based on a person’s “gender expression” would create a constitutional right for transgender athletes to play on girls. sports teams.
“The consequences of changing the state constitution are drastic,” said Lee Zeldin, a Republican former congressman and gubernatorial candidate and a leading critic of the amendment.
The leading group opposing the amendment, the Coalition to Protect Kids-NY, has held rallies across the state and taken out ads against the proposal, saying that banning discrimination based on “national origin” would allow noncitizens to could give to vote, and that the amendment would also go against the proposal. The right of parents to have a say in the medical care of their child is being taken away.
People who support the amendment claim the group is trying to mislead voters.
State courts have ruled that other parts of the state constitution already bar noncitizens from voting. The New York City Bar Association said nothing about the amendment, which would overturn existing state laws requiring parental consent for a child’s medical care.
“They really want to distract, sow division and change the subject,” said Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, executive director of the Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center at NYU School of Law. “I think New Yorkers can see through that.”
Supporters of the proposed amendment say it is true that a constitutional ban on discrimination based on a person’s “gender identity” would benefit transgender people, including trans athletes, but not in the dramatic way suggested by opponents.
State law already provides similar anti-discrimination protections to all public school students, said Katharine Bodde, interim co-director of policy at the New York Civil Liberties Union. Under these laws, transgender people already have the right to play on sports teams that match their gender identity, she argued. But those protections would be written into the state constitution, making it harder for a future Legislature to change the law.
“Opponents who spread fear about the small handful of students who already participate in sports are dangerous and bullying a vulnerable group of children,” Bodde told The Associated Press.
The state’s most populous county outside New York City recently passed legislation banning teams with transgender athletes from using county facilities unless the team is designated as co-ed.
A lawsuit is underway over whether Nassau County’s ban violates existing state law. New York’s attorney general said yes.
Lawyers for the province argued in a lawsuit that the ban is not discriminatory because it does not exclude transgender women and girls from sports, but rather requires them to play in a co-ed competition “with those of similar physical ability, strength, speed, power , not to dominate women’s sports.”
It’s also likely that the amendment, if passed, would become a factor if New York lawmakers ever decide to join the bill 25 states who have passed laws limiting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. Supporters of the amendment said it would ban discriminatory bans on medical care. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the arguments in his new term on whether such bans issued elsewhere are unconstitutional or contrary to federal law.
When it comes to abortion, there has already been some discussion in the courts about what Proposition 1 will and will not do.
Democrats in the state Legislature voted to place the amendment on the 2024 ballot after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Supporters of the amendment say that while the language does not explicitly enshrine the right to terminate a pregnancy, it would create a legal framework under which future restrictions on abortion would be interpreted by courts as an unconstitutional form of discrimination.
In a recent ruling, however, a state judge noted that its real impact was not so clear.
Judge David A. Weinstein denied a request to provide written materials to voters at polling places, saying the amendment would protect abortion rights, in part because of its nonspecific language. He predicted this would be the subject of future legal wrangles.
“I do not have the necessary crystal ball to predict how the proposed amendment will be interpreted in certain contexts,” he wrote.
New York state law currently allows abortion access until fetal viability, usually between 24 and 26 weeks.
Nevada voters in 2022 approved similar constitutional language to ban discrimination “regardless of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, ancestry or national origin.”
That amendment was subsequently cited in a lawsuit that struck down a state ban on Medicaid coverage for abortion services, with a court finding that the policy violated the amendment’s sex discrimination provision.