Justia Annotations is a forum for attorneys to summarize, comment on, and analyze case law published on our site. The plain meaning of this is (a) that all amendments must have the sanction of the people of the United States, the original fountain of power, acting through representative assemblies, and (b) that ratification by these assemblies in three-fourths of the states shall be taken as a decisive expression of the people's will and be binding on all. To that view few would be able to subscribe, and, in our opinion, it is quite untenable. The Court struck down the provisions that established 18 as the voting age in state and local elections. 1050, proposing the amendment declared that it should be inoperative unless ratified within seven years; and, secondly, that, in any event, the provisions of the act which the petitioner was charged with violating, and under which he was arrested, had not gone into effect at the time of the asserted violation nor at the time of the arrest.

2771; 40th Cong.3d Sess. that the federal 18-year-old voting age requirement is valid for national elections, Watson on the Constitution, vol. Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that lowered the voting age to 18 The remaining grounds are, first, that the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, to enforce which Title II of the act was adopted, is invalid, because the congressional. elections but not in State elections, States were faced with the complexity 300, 320 (No. The draft conscripted young men between the ages of 18 and 21 into the armed forces, primarily the U.S. Army, to serve in or support military combat operations in Vietnam. [Footnote 7] An examination of Article V discloses that it is intended to invest Congress with a wide range of power in proposing amendments. The decision in Mitchell may look like a victory MR. JUSTICE VAN DEVANTER delivered the opinion of the Court. The state filed a lawsuit that the Voting Acts of 1965 was unconstitutional, but U.S. Attorney General, John Mitchell, defended the act. Thirdly, as ratification is but the expression of the approbation of the people, and is to be effective when had in three-fourths of the states, there is a fair implication that it must be sufficiently contemporaneous in that number of states to reflect the will of the people in all sections at relatively the same period, which, of course, ratification scattered through a long series of years would not do.

against the United States and Attorney General John Mitchell to challenge the What then is the reasonable inference or implication? Determined to get around inaction on the issue, congressional allies included a provision for the 18-year-old vote in a 1970 bill that extended the Voting Rights Act. [9] Between 1942, when public debates about a lower voting age began in earnest, and the early 1970s, ideas about youth agency increasingly challenged the caretaking model that had previously dominated the nation's approaches to young people's rights. [31], On March 2, 1971, Bayh's subcommittee and the House Judiciary Committee approved the proposed constitutional amendment to lower the voting age to 18 for all elections. The 19th Amendment, ratified in 1920, 1. 5. 1025). [Footnote 10], We do not find anything in the article which suggests that an amendment, once proposed, is to be open to ratification for all time, or that ratification in some of the states may be separated from that in others by many years and yet be effective. These considerations and the general purport and spirit of the article lead to the conclusion expressed by Judge Jameson [Footnote 11], "that an alteration of the Constitution proposed today has relation to the sentiment and the felt needs of today, and that, if not ratified early while that sentiment may fairly be supposed to exist, it ought to be regarded as waived, and not again to be voted upon, unless a second time proposed by Congress.". ratified in 1964, restricts States from imposing a poll tax as a requirement 26, 27; Wyo.House Journal, 1919, pp. 304, 14 U. S. 324-325; McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. S. S.J. Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970. Res.

This case judged whether the state or federal government had the right to decide who was qualified to vote in State elections. [12] In his statement on signing the extension, Nixon said: Despite my misgivings about the constitutionality of this one provision, I have signed the bill. 54th Cong.2d Sess. Justice Hugo Black announced the Court's [1] A common slogan of proponents of lowering the voting age was "old enough to fight, old enough to vote".[2]. An example of 27th Amendment challenges cannot be found in any Supreme Court cases, perhaps because it is too young, and/or too straightforward, to be referenced in a lawsuit. [Footnote 6], That the Constitution contains no express provision on the subject is not, in itself, controlling, for, with the Constitution as with a statute or other written instrument, what is reasonably implied is as much a part of it as what is expressed.

Acts 1919, p. 512; Ark.House Journal, 1919, p. 10; Ark.Sen. However, the Court upheld the provision establishing the voting age as 18 in federal elections. These justices [15][16], During debate of the 1970 extension of the Voting Rights Act, Senator Ted Kennedy argued that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment allowed Congress to pass national legislation lowering the voting age.

Representative Emanuel Celler, one of the most vocal opponents of a lower voting age from the 1940s through 1970 (and Chair of the powerful House Judiciary Committee for much of that period), insisted that youth lacked "the good judgement" essential to good citizenship and that the qualities that made youth good soldiers did not also make them good voters. Oregon, Texas, and Idaho brought suit in the Supreme Court Some consideration had been given to the subject before, but without any definite action. 551, 552. Oregon, Texas, and Idaho brought suit in the Supreme Court against the United States and Attorney General John Mitchell to challenge the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970.

During the signing ceremony, held in the East Room of the White House, Nixon talked about his confidence in the youth of America. [Footnote 1] Theretofore, twenty-one amendments had been proposed by Congress and seventeen of these had been ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the states, some within a single year after their proposal and all within four years. Section 1. No. [24] He denounced the military service argument as well, calling it a "cliche". Two, after ratification in one less than the required number of states had lain dormant for a century. Kennedy, Edward M. "The Time Has Come to Let Young People Vote", in Amendment XXVI Lowering the Voting Age, ed. Pp. The Court was deeply divided in this case, and a majority of justices did not agree on a rationale for the holding. Cong.Globe, 39th Cong. [33][34] On March 23, 1971, the House of Representatives voted 401–19 in favor of the proposed amendment. Justice Black that the Constitution gives Congress broad powers to regulate

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