Once again, as always, Republicans are fighting hard to disenfranchise legitimate voters. Once again, as always, their sole purpose is to reduce the number of voters who are more likely to vote Democratic such as the young and minorities. Let us never forget that the fundemental illegitimacy of Florida 2000 was not the the butterfly ballot, chads or even the egregiously partisan and a-legal supreme court decision, but rather the voter registration purge and non-entry of registrations turned from African-American areas (e.g., voter registration drives at predominently black colleges) before election day.
However, I wonder if the Article 2 of the 14th Amendment might offer some pushback:
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
The (ahem) orginal intent of this was of course to force southern state to not disenfranchise black men. It was a self conscious repudiation of the 3/5 clause.
It would be nice if Democrats, civil rights lawyers and the like would threaten states that are considering or actually implementing disenfranchising laws or regulations or practices with losing congressional seats.
Needless to say throughout the post-Reconstruction Jim Crow era this was not enforced. And I certainly look forward to actual lawyers and historians commenting on why it may not apply here.
But it seems like an interesting line of counter-attack, that I have not heard others mention. So I thought I would bring it up.
What do you think, or know about Article 2 of the 14th Amendment?
