Oregon v. Mitchell
| Oregon v. Mitchell | |
|---|---|
|
| |
| Argued October 20, 1970 Decided December 21, 1970 | |
| Full case name | Oregon v. Mitchell, Attorney General |
| Citations |
91 S. Ct. 260; 27 L. Ed. 2d 272; 1970 U.S. LEXIS 1 |
| Holding | |
| Congress may set requirements for voting in federal elections, but is prohibited from setting requirements in local and state elections. | |
| Court membership | |
| |
| Case opinions | |
| Majority | Black |
| Concur/dissent | Douglas |
| Concur/dissent | Harlan |
| Concur/dissent | Brennan, White, Marshall |
| Concur/dissent | Stewart, joined by Burger, Blackmun |
| Laws applied | |
| Necessary and Proper Clause, U.S. Const. art. I § 2 and 4, art. II § 1, Enforcement Clauses of the 14th and 15th Amendments, Voting Rights Act | |
|
Superseded by | |
| U.S. Const. amend. XXVI (in part) | |
Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U.S. 112 (1970) was a Supreme Court case which held that the United States Congress could set voting age requirements for federal elections but not for local or state elections. The case also upheld Congress's nationwide prohibition on literacy tests and similar "tests or devices" used as voting qualifications as defined in the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Congress had passed the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970 requiring all states to register citizens between the ages of 18 and 21 as voters. The state of Oregon objected to the lower voting age, and filed suit on the grounds that the act was unconstitutional. The respondent was John Mitchell in his role as United States Attorney General. The Supreme Court ruled in favor for Oregon by a 5-4 vote, in that it found that while Congress could set requirements for voting in federal elections that it did not have the power to set the voting age for local and state elections.
Enforcement
Enforcement of this ruling would have proven to be problematic, since states not lowering the voting age to the age of 18 for state elections would have had to provide special federal-election only ballots to citizens between 18 and 20 voting in federal elections. States would have had to maintain two sets of voting registries, one for those between the ages of 18 to 20 and another for those 21 and older.
The question became moot with the prompt ratification of the Twenty-sixth Amendment the next year, which lowered the voting age for citizens to 18 for all elections at the federal level and in all states.
Though Oregon v. Mitchell affirmed the federal government's power to set a minimum voting age for federal elections, no case has tested whether the federal government possesses the power to prevent states from lowering their voting age below 18, since the federal government has not tried to prohibit states from doing so.
See also
- List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 400
- United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1 (1936)
- Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U.S. 238 (1936)
References
Further reading
- Cohen, William (1975). "Congressional Power to Interpret Due Process and Equal Protection". Stanford Law Review. Stanford Law Review, Vol. 27, No. 3. 27 (3): 603–620. JSTOR 1228329. doi:10.2307/1228329.
- Greene, Richard S. (1972). "Congressional Power over the Elective Franchise: The Unconstitutional Phases of Oregon v. Mitchell". Boston University Law Review. 52: 505. ISSN 0006-8047.
External links
Works related to Oregon v. Mitchell at Wikisource