A deceptive New York ballot initiative would empower the blue state's lawmakers to pass such progressive laws as allowing illegal migrants to vote and mandating the most radical reading of transgender rights, according to the New York Post editorial board.
Named the "Equal Rights Amendment," Proposition 1 was placed on the ballot under the guise that it's just about abortion. Proponents say enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution would make it harder to restrict if the political situation were to change.
However, New York's state Republican Party says the state already has anti-discrimination laws — Article 1 Section 11 of the New York state Constitution prohibits discrimination based on race, color, creed, and religion — and the amendment goes well beyond creating a constitutional right to abortion.
"This is not about abortion," state Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt said, Spectrum News 1 reported. "This is about something far more insidious and New Yorkers have to know that."
Constitutional lawyer Bobbie Anne Cox warned Proposition 1 is "a Trojan horse of epic proportions," the Post previously reported.
The newspaper's editorial board agrees, saying the amendment would ban "'unequal treatment' for a long list of categories" — including sexual orientation, gender identity, and national origin — and also would allow "unequal treatment as long as it's in the name of countering past unfairness."
"Proposition 1, in short, is a disgraceful, deceptive bid to milk New Yorkers' pro-choice sentiments to empower the lunatic left that now dominates state politics to impose its agenda permanently, without any further chance for voters to protest," the Post's editorial board wrote in an opinion column Sunday night.
"If you have no other reason to vote, still take the trouble so you can deliver another NO to Prop 1."
The board cited courts blocking the New York City Council's 2021 law to let 800,000 non-citizens with green cards vote, because the state Constitution restricts voting in New York to U.S. citizens who are 18 or older and have lived in the state at least 30 days.
Prop 1 would undo that protection because it would prohibit discrimination on the basis of "national origin."