Oregon v. Mitchell

Like, you'd have a hearing on a constitutional issue because a senator would say, "I think we might need to amend the Constitution," and often you would need to amend the Constitution because the Supreme Court issued a ruling, and if the Supreme Court issues a ruling interpreting the Constitution and Congress is saying, "Oh, we think the Supreme Court got it wrong," but instead of just saying that the Supreme Court got it wrong, why don't we have robust hearings on the need for a constitutional amendment? And if we have those robust hearings, maybe the people will be persuaded that what we actually really need to do right now is amend the Constitution.

And this was, you know, the Supreme Court decided a case called Oregon v. Mitchell with regard to state voting ages.

And we had the, the last time we actually [chuckles] amended the Constitution, the 26th Amendment, there were hearings, and we quickly passed a constitutional amendment that overruled a Supreme Court decision.

And I think that in...

By 1970, there were nine states that allowed voters under the age of 21, and the patchwork of ages prompted Congress to attempt to pass a law making 18 the nationwide minimum.

That legislation prompted a Supreme Court case, Oregon v. Mitchell.

In that case, the court ruled that Congress has the right to set the minimum age for federal elections, leaving the state and local election ages to the states.

In the winter of 1971, Senator Jennings Randolph of West Virginia and Congressman Emanuel Seller from New York introduced companion bills in both chambers of the federal legislature, codifying the minimum voting age in the United States to be 18.

How could the judge arrive at such a conclusion?

Well, you're talking about Judge Leibowitz here, and, uh, this judge needs to be impeached because if you would go back and look at a Supreme Court decision in Oregon v. Mitchell in 1970, you would see that the Supreme Court even weighed in and said, yes, the federal government does have an authority when it comes to, um, regulating federal elections.

So I'm sorry, Judge Leibowitz, but you're dead wrong here in, um, uh, that kind of a judicial decision where you show yourself to be a radical, uh, activist judge, uh, is, um, is, is gonna put you in, in, in the spotlight for us here in Congress to impeach you.

But this judge's view, as you've just laid out, is consistent with what the Democratic socialists are pushing for.

So, uh, uh, the government had put forward basically three reasons why it, it, it found that, why it, in support of the constitutionality of this provision, and, uh, the judge kind of, uh, swatted each of them down.

The first one, the court, rather the, the government noted that in, uh, uh, I believe 1970, in a case called Oregon v. Mitchell, uh, the court, uh, upheld the authority of Congress to lower the voting age from 21 to 18 in federal elections, and this was shortly before a constitutional amendment made it the rule everywhere.

Uh, but, uh, uh, we-- as this judge noted, though, there was no majority rationale in that opinion.

Some judges said is that the el- the Elections Clause authorized Congress to do it.