14th Amendment: deny right to vote, get reps cut by same percentage

[yurbud]

Has this ever been invoked for things like the GOP voter purges? Even when they use the fig leaf of purging criminals, they intentionally purged those who only had similar names as criminals.

What would happen if the penalty was fewer seats in Congress? I'm sure there is some drawback to this, but it is the kind of thing that would put the fear of God into pols more than any fines or criminal penalties that seem to be rarely enforced.

Amendment XIV - Citizenship Rights. Ratified 7/9/1868.


2. ... 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.


http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Am14S2

[krispos42]

1. Hot damn!

So Ohio will have, like, 2 representatives now?

Somebody tell Keith!

[yurbud]

3. you tell him. It would be funny if Dems invoked this in Florida and Ohio

and told voters they could thank Katherine Harris and Ken Blackwell.

[suston96]

7. One of my favorites...

"...denied....or in any way abridged....."

That "...in any way abridged" is a powerful part of the caveats in the Amendment. Some scholars state that this paragraph is a "dead letter" (doesn't matter) because of the subsequent Fifteenth Amendment, and others protecting the right to vote.

I don't agree with them. In addition, it protects voting rights that are denied or abridged in state elections for state constitutional officers.

A very powerful but usually unnoticed part of the Fourteenth Amendment. Thanks for bringing it up.

[yurbud]

11. anybody know a lawyer working on election watch duty?

this could be the kind of thing to take to court if the Democrats actually fight this time.

[AzDar]

2. Wowzer! n/t

[hobbit709]

4. Let's get some legal eagles to chime in on this.

This could get interesting.

[yurbud]

5. I was looking for something totally different too--whether

congressional districts had to be one seat per geographic area instead of multiple seats in larger districts or even all at large.

I didn't see any requirement for one seat per district.

[elehhhhna]

6. Shame they never got around to passing the ERA

[Hun Joro]

8. Exactly what I was thinking.

[elehhhhna]

15. Welcome to DU, Hun!

:patriot:

[mom cat]

9. WOAH! I like that.

[yurbud]

10. you write a lot of people--any of them lawyers?

[mom cat]

12. Maybe Land Shark should see this!

[mom cat]

13. I just sent it to him.

[Warren DeMontague]

14. The only context the GOP gives a shit about the 14th amendment in

is, they want to apply it to fertilized eggs the second after a sperm and unfertilized egg fuse. That way, they can charge any woman who takes the birth control pill (which they consider an abortifacient and morally equivalent to abortion) or uses an IUD with "murder", "attempted murder", or "use of a concealed murder weapon".

Other than that, outside of the context of their end goal of criminalizing all non-procreative sex acts, the 14th amendment is just part of what George Bush calls that "God-Damn piece of paper", the Constitution.