The Week

A proposed solution to the dilemma of liberal senators: Why not vote for a bill that would authorize the construction of missiles that would reach exactly as far as Cairo, but not a mile further?

That vote-at-eighteen law that Congress passed and President Nixon signed in June has been found constitutional by a three-judge U.S. District Court. Now. Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution leaves it to the states to fix voter qualifications. The Fourteenth Amendment authorizes the Federal Government to interfere when any state denies any citizen equal protection of the laws— specifically, “when the right to vote … is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such states, being 21 years of age. . . .” Male inhabitants? The Nineteenth Amendment took care of that, but the proviso about “being 21 years of age” still stands and the only way to change it, constitutionally, is by an Amendment. Instead we have a statute which a President dedicated to “strict construction” of the Constitution should, dammit, have vetoed but instead signed while uttering a piety about hoping the Supreme Court would quickly rule on its constitutionality. That ruling is expected by the end of October; meanwhile, we have the fuzzy verdict of the three judges. Two of them are out-and-out liberals. The third, George E. MacKinnon, is a Nixon appointee who the Washington Post says “met the President’s test as a ‘strict constructionist’ conservative.” MacKinnon justified his loose interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment on the grounds that history is “inconclusive” on the subject of the Amendment’s application to state voting standards—just as Earl Warren found history “inconclusive” on the same Amendment’s relation to public schools. What’s conclusive? Politics. Nobody wants to take the responsibility for saying that even the kids are bound by the Constitution.

Featured Tags

A proposed solution to the dilemma of liberal senators: Why not vote for a bill that would authorize the construction of missiles that would reach exactly as far as Cairo, but not a mile further?

That vote-at-eighteen law that Congress passed and President Nixon signed in June has been found constitutional by a three-judge U.S. District Court. Now. Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution leaves it to the states to fix voter qualifications. The Fourteenth Amendment authorizes the Federal Government to interfere when any state denies any citizen equal protection of the laws— specifically, “when the right to vote … is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such states, being 21 years of age. . . .” Male inhabitants? The Nineteenth Amendment took care of that, but the proviso about “being 21 years of age” still stands and the only way to change it, constitutionally, is by an Amendment. Instead we have a statute which a President dedicated to “strict construction” of the Constitution should, dammit, have vetoed but instead signed while uttering a piety about hoping the Supreme Court would quickly rule on its constitutionality. That ruling is expected by the end of October; meanwhile, we have the fuzzy verdict of the three judges. Two of them are out-and-out liberals. The third, George E. MacKinnon, is a Nixon appointee who the Washington Post says “met the President’s test as a ‘strict constructionist’ conservative.” MacKinnon justified his loose interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment on the grounds that history is “inconclusive” on the subject of the Amendment’s application to state voting standards—just as Earl Warren found history “inconclusive” on the same Amendment’s relation to public schools. What’s conclusive? Politics. Nobody wants to take the responsibility for saying that even the kids are bound by the Constitution.