Constitutional Amendment For Voting Rights w/Amendment Inside

Amendment XXVIII - Citizen's Right to Vote

Section 1:  All citizens of the United States of America are hereby guaranteed the right to vote in federal elections.  Citizens are also guaranteed that on the national level, their vote will be worth the same amount as any other citizen's vote, otherwise known as one person, one vote.

Section 2:  Any and all election procedures that prohibit reasonable exercise of this right, or that add unreasonable burden on the citizen to register to vote, are deemed unlawful under this article and subject to prosecution as a felony.

Section 3:  The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legistlation.

Italics are updates

That's my amendment.  Any changes in wording (or spelling, I'm sure I screwed something up) or edits are welcome.  This is probably the best chance Dems have to stick it to Repugs in the next few years.

•  Add to end of #2

  will be considered a felony and prosecuted to the full extent of the law...

  or something like that.

  "Time is for careful people, not passionate ones"

  by roseeriter on Fri Jan 07, 2005 at 05:30:19 AM PDT

  •  asdf

    Yes, I was going too, but wasn't sure how the constitution usually deals with breaking the law, if it does at all, so I stuck with that.

    by Builderman on Fri Jan 07, 2005 at 05:32:22 AM PDT

•  "national level" ?

  Is "national level" or "federal elections" concepts that are explicitly recognized in the Constitution? I know that the 14th A. refers to "the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress," etc. I don't know if it actually contains phrases like national or federal . . . but I haven't really studied it in much detail lately.

  by rp8238a on Fri Jan 07, 2005 at 06:06:34 AM PDT

•  Nice Idea

  Its wording is a bit too "non-legalese" for me but then again I'm not an objective observer and admit that simplicity is the ideal for constitutional language.  

  One suggestion:  drop Section 3.  That wording "Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation" is like a death knell to meaningful, permanent change.  Look at the legislative history and subsequent legislative enactments of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act as prime examples, all of which were supposed to be enforced "through appropriate legislation and we see how well that's worked.  This "when politicians get around to interpreting it" language only appears in the 13th through 15th Amendments (addressing slavery, racial equality and the rights of citizenship); 18th Amendment (temperance), 19th Amendment (women's suffrage), the grant of the Presidental franchise to DC (23rd Amendment), the elimination of poll taxes (24th Amendment) and lowering the voting age to 18 (26th Amendment).  In other words, IMO it appears constitutionally only when the right allegedly being granted is a subject of great controversy for which folks want to preserve political wiggle room, rather than create an inalienable constitutional right.
  

  by shanikka on Fri Jan 07, 2005 at 06:07:02 AM PDT

•  I like, I like

  good job.

  by georgia10 on Fri Jan 07, 2005 at 06:22:41 AM PDT