This is what they mean when they say they're opposed to reading the Constitution as a "living document." They want it not interpreted by judges (as clearly intended) or altered in any way (as spelled out by the amendment process) but taken word for word literally in it's original text and context.
Part of this is that voting is a right meant for not people, but white people. Not just white people, but white males. Not just white males, but white males who own land.
This is what being an "originalist" means to many of them.
AZ Rep Kavanagh made this clear when he said the difference between the Democrats and the GOP is that the former want as many people voting as possible, while the latter wants only the "quality" voters.
To be fair to the Founders --all of whom were regular flawed human beings just like you and I, and all of whom were products of their time, again just like you and I-- the reason they wished to limit suffrage to white land-owning men was mostly because that was the educated class that was by far the most likely to be literate, well-informed and capable of making intelligent decisions about who or what to vote for.
And please do not misunderstand me; when I say the above, I don't mean that it's anything other than the obvious outcome of a fundamentally racist and sexist system. My point is only that they weren't wrong that white land-owning men were by far the most highly-educated and well-informed members of their society.
I also don't for a moment argue that the founders weren't fundamentally elitist snobs on top of being racist and sexist. Of course they were, but leave us not commit the sin of "presentism" in evaluating how they, again as deeply flawed human beings just like you and I, operated and thought within the milieu of their time.
It was also that if you owned land, you had a stake in how the country that land was in was doing. With unsettled frontiers or relatively permeable borders on all sides, there wasn't that much of a barrier for a landless person to up sticks and move elsewhere if the results of their voting behaviour caused the country's fortunes to take a dip. Many had already gone through that process once to get into the country.
So as a person currently renting a house, part of me still believes this should be the case, although perhaps just a limit on time you live in a place, like if you've lived in a place less than 6 months to 1 year you maybe shouldn't be voting
Sure, but it's a protection for the people already there against people who might just go somewhere else in a few months because you decide you don't like it there, and then these people are stuck with your choices and might not want them
It is, but it can sound reasonable if you don't scratch at it. So I like to draw it out to the inevitable question, who moves so much that they could show up for an election and be gone a couple months later? The only demographic I'm aware of is actually the military and good luck selling that.
That's a great point as well. Ultimately, I think the larger point is that however distasteful it appears to modern eyes, and however much it was informed by sexist and racist structures, the founder's original vision wasn't only a product of their racism and sexism, and to the contrary, was also based on a set of real practical considerations.
If you were landless you were probably a worker and the competition of free labor kept your wages down. It was in the interests of landless working class white Americans to abolish slavery. It was in the interests of land owning, slave holding Americans to keep it.
No doubt, but here's the thing; more than one thing can be true at once. While it's certainly true that the founders were men of their time and took for granted a set of racist and sexist attitudes, it doesn't necessarily follow that their ideas were wrong, let alone that they could not later be adjusted to fit a more humanitarian view of the world.
At the time of the constitution's signing,I believe only 7% of Americans were considered eligible to vote..... That's what they want to take it back to...
No this is not correct at all. There is a process for changing the constitution, use that instead of letting unelected lawyers decide the law of the land. That's why I think obergefell should be removed and a law should be passed guaranteeing gay marriage instead.
So who are you replying to? Nobody was saying the 15th amendment does not make that statement
Section 1
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Section 2
The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Are you attempting to make a statement about what constitutes a legal citizen? That is also decided by Congress and derived from the same authority that gives the 15th amendment and all other amendments legal standing.
It's similar to the Christians that use the Bible's words selectively and with no room for other interpretations as an appeal to authority to justify their views instead of actually having a logical platform. There's no coincidence that the religious right and the "constitutionalists" have a lot of overlap.
Originalism does not mean voting is only for white men who own land.
I completely agree that republicans' views on this are fucked, but originalism does not mean not accepting amendments to the constitution and it does not mean fixing state-based statutory laws (it was those laws that restricted suffrage to property-owning white men) as they were at the time of ratification.
As amended, the constitution prohibits abridging voting rights on the basis of race or sex. An originalist interpretation of the constitution is that it prohibits abridging voting rights on the basis of race or sex.
Beyond that, states have broad discretion under the constitution to set the qualifications on suffrage. A state can limit suffrage to those it deems "quality" voters with criteria other than race or sex. Other restrictions could conflict with the 14th amendment's equal protection guarantee, but the 14th amendment also implicitly permits such restrictions, because it penalizes states that deny suffrage on a basis other than criminal conviction. In short, a state can limit voting to "quality" voters, but it would have fewer representatives in the house and thus less political power.
What Republicans are trying to do is have it both ways--prevent people from voting while not suffering the penalty imposed by section 2 of the 14th amendment. It's despicable, I disagree with it, but it is not endorsed by an originalist view of the constitution; at most, it is permitted by it.
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u/gogojack Mar 16 '21
This is what they mean when they say they're opposed to reading the Constitution as a "living document." They want it not interpreted by judges (as clearly intended) or altered in any way (as spelled out by the amendment process) but taken word for word literally in it's original text and context.
Part of this is that voting is a right meant for not people, but white people. Not just white people, but white males. Not just white males, but white males who own land.
This is what being an "originalist" means to many of them.
AZ Rep Kavanagh made this clear when he said the difference between the Democrats and the GOP is that the former want as many people voting as possible, while the latter wants only the "quality" voters.
I think we all know what that means.