Back in 1970 Congress passed a law requiring states to allow 18-20 to vote in all elections (the voting age being 21 in most states). In Oregon v. Mitchell the Supreme Court ruled that while Congress couldn’t lower the voting age for state & local elections it could lower the voting age in federal election (ie for Congress or Presidential electors). Enforcing this would’ve been an expensive & logistical nightmare for states (they would’ve needed to maintain 2 separate voter rolls), but it became a moot point when the 26th Amendment was quickly ratified next year. Could Congress do something similar regarding voting rights for convicted felons, say pass a law requiring states to allow felons to vote in federal elections once they’ve served their sentences?
From what I understand, Congress has total authority to regulate how federal elections are conducted, provided they don’t violate the Constitution. The practical reason why they won’t is because it would deter voting in state and local elections. Red states could easily turn it to their advantage by having the state and local elections at different sites or on different days, or even doing something as simple as asking voters to select which ballots they wanted on a form when they entered the polls.
The amount of votes Democrats could gain from enfranchising felons(not a sure thing, BTW, as no real studies have been done on felon voting preferences) would be dwarfed by state and local losses by those races turning into low turnout affairs.
There is no such thing as a “federal election” when it comes to voter eligibility. Eligibility is a state function, regardless of who is on the ballot. While you may vote for president, senator, or representative at a particular election, your eligibility to vote in the election is based on your residence and that state’s election laws.
In practice you’re right, but in theory Congress can actually decide eligibility for federal elections:
However, due to the 5-4 decision and the majority opinion not actually being a majority opinion, this might not be a firm precedent.
Then congress could reinstate the voting rights act voided by SCOTUS a few years ago with respect to federal elections. Wouldn’t that be a mess?
Almost all states already do:
better link
Yes, I think this is one of those opinions that gets read only to resolve the actual issue. Age limits in federal elections can be set by Congress, period. No other justice joined Black’s opinion; there were two different 4-justice opinions that addressed state and federal powers more generally.
The 4 justices who thought that the federal government can use the 14th amendment to regulate state and local elections in regards to AGE seems like pretty extreme judicial activism to me. It almost seems like they wanted to interpret the 14th amendment much as the interstate commerce clause is interpreted: to give the federal government nearly limitless power.
Expansive interpretation of the 14th Amendment is pretty much a universal thing now. See recent 2nd Amendment jurisprudence, for example.
Expansive interpretation of equal protection and due process, yes. Expansive interpretation as far as federal government powers over the states go is another matter entirely. Ruling for the federal government in the Oregon case would mean that the federal government could control California housing policy, or state occupational licensing laws, since those laws have disparate effect on minorities. There would really be no policy area left to state and local governments.
It was an expansive interpretation of [the] equal protection [clause]. It’s not like they just said “14th Amendment is my cite!” or something.
And yes, the federal government can control housing policy in California. That’s what the Fair Housing Act does. Congress hasn’t generally meddled in state occupational licensing laws because it hasn’t found systemic equal protection violations that it felt needed to be addressed.
Well if Congress can void state occupational licensing laws they should probably go ahead and do it. Both left and right wingers who care about the overuse of licensing regulations have seen it as a state level battle, but if one act of Congress can fix it, why not? Same for California’s zoning laws which make housing so expensive.
They can’t override anything using their 14th Amendment powers. Only laws which deny equal protection or due process. If Idaho refused to grant optometry licenses to blacks or Muslims, Congress might get involved.
The laws I mentioned have a disparate effect on minorities. And young people, since that was the issue in the Oregon case rather than race.