...but I'll consider that an honest omission. :)

Mostly, I agree. The part about "equal protection under the law" is what got the Federal government into the civil rights business in the first place. There wasn't any.

Kicking social policy back to the states, with an "equal protection" amendment, opens the door for a whole group of new lawsuits, because the logical route to enforcing that guarantee will have to be suing state governments over statutes that violate any "equal protection" amendment rather than passing a Federal law that counteracts it. We'll have an entire new generation of judicial activists, and judicial appointments will become even more important, and maybe even more visible to the general public, when electing the other branches of government.

The amendment is likely a pipedream, though a pleasant one. Constitutional scholars from all over the political spectrum tend to oppose amending the Constitution just to make clearer what is already included. They consider such amendments to be "fat" on an otherwise lean document. Ultimately, it was the Constitutional scholars, and not the anti-feminists, who defeated the Equal Rights Amendment. They opposed it on principle: there are other portions of the Constitution that can be interpreted to mean gender equality, especially in combination with the Nineteenth, the Women's Suffrage Amendment. The majority of American citizens isn't opposed to political and legal gender equality (which is really all the Constitution can guarantee), but enough doubt was sewn about whether there was a need for an additional amendment so that the supporters of the concept were split.

So will it be with this. The only thing original about it is the residency stipulation. That could stand alone as an amendment, but I doubt it would fly.

Regards--
Mary Anne