MR. JUSTICE BLACK, announcing the judgments of the Court in an opinion expressing his own view of the cases.
MR. JUSTICE HARLAN, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
MR. JUSTICE STEWART, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN join, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
MR. JUSTICE STEWART, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and MR. JUSTICE BLACKMUN join, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, MR. JUSTICE WHITE,
and MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL dissent from the judgments insofar as
they declare § 302 unconstitutional as applied to state and
local elections, and concur in the judgments in all other respects
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, dissenting
I dissent from the judgments of the Court insofar
as they declare § 302 of the Voting Rights Act, 84 Stat.
318, unconstitutional as applied to state elections and concur
in the judgments as they affect federal elections, but for different
reasons. I rely on the Equal Protection Clause and on the Privileges
and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
I
The grant of the franchise to 18-year-olds
by Congress is in my view valid across the board.
I suppose that in 1920, when the Nineteenth
Amendment was ratified giving women the right to vote, it was
assumed by most constitutional experts that there was no relief
by way of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
In Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162, the Court held in the 1874
Term that a State could constitutionally restrict the franchise
to men. While the Fourteenth Amendment was relied upon, the thrust
of the opinion was directed at the Privileges and Immunities Clause
with a subsidiary reference to the Due Process Clause. It was
much later, indeed not until the 1961 Term -- nearly a century
after the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted -- that discrimination
against voters on grounds other than race was struck down.
The first case in which this Court struck down
a statute under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment was Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303, decided
in the 1879 Term. 1 In the
1961 Term we squarely held that the manner of apportionment of
members of a state legislature raised a justiciable question under
the Equal Protection Clause, Baker v. Carr, 369 U.S. 186. That
case was followed by numerous others, e. g.: that one person could
not be given twice or 10 times the voting power of another person
in a state-wide election merely because he lived in a rural area
or in the smallest rural county; 2
that the principle of equality applied to both Houses of a bicameral
legislature; 3 that political
parties receive protection under the Equal Protection Clause just
as voters do. 4
The reapportionment cases, however, are not
quite in point here, though they are the target of my Brother
HARLAN's dissent. His painstaking review of the history of the
Equal Protection Clause leads him to conclude that "political"
rights are not protected though "civil" rights are protected.
The problem of what questions are "political" has been
a recurring issue in this Court from the beginning, and we recently
reviewed them all in Baker v. Carr, supra, and in Powell v. McCormack,
395 U.S. 486. Baker v. Carr was a reapportionment case and Powell
v. McCormack involved the exclusion from the House of Representatives
of a Congressman. The issue of "political" question
versus "justiciable" question was argued pro and con
in those cases; and my Brother HARLAN stated in Baker v. Carr,
369 U.S., at 330 et seq., and on related occasions (Gray v. Sanders,
372 U.S. 368, 382; Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, 20; Reynolds
v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 589) his views on the constitutional dimensions
of the "political" question in the setting of the reapportionment
problem.
Those cases involved the question whether legislatures
must be so structured as to reflect with approximate equality
the voice of every voter. The ultimate question was whether, absent
a proper apportionment by the legislature, a federal court could
itself make an apportionment. That kind of problem raised issues
irrelevant here. Reapportionment, as our experience shows, presented
a tangle of partisan politics in which geography, economics, urban
life, rural constituencies, and numerous other nonlegal factors
play varying roles. The competency of courts to deal with them
was challenged. Yet we held the issues were justiciable. None
of those so-called "political" questions are involved
here.
This case, so far as equal protection is concerned,
is no whit different from a controversy over a state law that
disqualifies women from certain types of employment, Goesaert
v. Cleary, 335 U.S. 464, or that imposes a heavier punishment
on one class of offender than on another whose crime is not intrinsically
different. Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535. The right to vote
is, of course, different in one respect from the other rights
in the economic, social, or political field which, as indicated
in the Appendix to this opinion, are under the Equal Protection
Clause. The right to vote is a civil right deeply embedded in
the Constitution. Article I, § 2, provides that the House
is composed of members "chosen . . . by the People"
and the electors "shall have the Qualifications requisite
for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature."
The Seventeenth Amendment states that Senators shall be "elected
by the people." The Fifteenth Amendment speaks of the "right
of citizens of the United States to vote" -- not only in
federal but in state elections. The Court in Ex parte Yarbrough,
110 U.S. 651, 665, stated:
"This new constitutional right was mainly
designed for citizens of African descent. The principle, however,
that the protection of the exercise of this right is within the
power of Congress, is as necessary to the right of other citizens
to vote as to the colored citizen, and to the right to vote in
general as to the right to be protected against discrimination."
It was in that tradition that we said in Reynolds
v. Sims, supra, at 555, "The right to vote freely for the
candidate of one's choice is of the essence of a democratic society,
and any restrictions on that right strike at the heart of representative
government."
This "right to choose, secured by the
Constitution," United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299, 315,
is a civil right of the highest order. Voting concerns "political"
matters; but the right is not "political" in the constitutional
sense. Interference with it has given rise to a long and consistent
line of decisions by the Court; and the claim has always been
upheld as justiciable. 5 Whatever
distinction may have been made, following the Civil War, between
"civil" and "political" rights, has passed
into history. In Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, 383 U.S.
663, 669, we stated: "Notions of what constitutes equal treatment
for purposes of the Equal Protection Clause do change." That
statement is in harmony with my view of the Fourteenth Amendment,
as expressed by my Brother BRENNAN: "We must therefore conclude
that its framers understood their Amendment to be a broadly worded
injunction capable of being interpreted by future generations
in accordance with the vision and needs of those generations."
Post, at 278. Hence the history of the Fourteenth Amendment tendered
by my Brother HARLAN is irrelevant to the present problem.
Since the right is civil and not "political,"
it is protected by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment which in turn, by § 5 of that Amendment, can be
"enforced" by Congress.
In Carrington v. Rash, 380 U.S. 89, we held
that Texas could not bar a person, otherwise qualified, from voting
merely because he was a member of the armed services. Occupation,
we held, when used to bar a person from voting, was that invidious
discrimination which the Equal Protection Clause condemns. In
Evans v. Cornman, 398 U.S. 419, we held that a State could not
deny the vote to residents of a federal enclave when it treated
them as residents for many other purposes. In Harper v. Virginia
Board of Elections, 383 U.S., at 666, we held a State could not
in harmony with the Equal Protection Clause keep a person from
voting in state elections because of "the affluence of the
voter or payment of any fee." In Kramer v. Union School District,
395 U.S. 621, we held that a person could not be barred from voting
in school board elections merely because he was a bachelor. So
far as the Equal Protection Clause was concerned, we said that
the line between those qualified to vote and those not qualified
turns on whether those excluded have "a distinct and direct
interest in the school meeting decisions." Id., at 632. In
Cipriano v. City of Houma, 395 U.S. 701, we held that a state
law which gave only "property taxpayers" the right to
vote on the issuance of revenue bonds of a municipal utility system
violated equal protection as "the benefits and burdens of
the bond issue fall indiscriminately on property owner and nonproperty
owner alike." Id., at 705. And only on June 23, 1970, we
held in Phoenix v. Kolodziejski, 399 U.S. 204, that it violates
equal protection to restrict those who may vote on general obligation
bonds to real property taxpayers. We looked to see if there was
any "compelling state interest" in the voting restrictions.
We held that "nonproperty owners" are not "substantially
less interested in the issuance of these securities than are property
owners," id., at 212, and that presumptively "when all
citizens are affected in important ways by a governmental decision
subject to a referendum, the Constitution does not permit weighted
voting or the exclusion of otherwise qualified citizens from the
franchise." 6 Id., at
209. And as recently as November 9, 1970, we summarily affirmed
a district court decision (310 F.Supp. 1172) on the basis of Kolodziejski.
Parish School Board of St. Charles v. Stewart, post, p. 884, where
Louisiana gave a vote on municipal bond issues only to "property
taxpayers."
The powers granted Congress by § 5 of
the Fourteenth Amendment to "enforce" the Equal Protection
Clause are "the same broad powers expressed in the Necessary
and Proper Clause, Art. I, § 8, cl. 18." Katzenbach
v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641, 650. As we stated in that case, "Correctly
viewed, § 5 is a positive grant of legislative power authorizing
Congress to exercise its discretion in determining whether and
what legislation is needed to secure the guarantees of the Fourteenth
Amendment." Id., at 651.
Congress might well conclude that a reduction
in the voting age from 21 to 18 was needed in the interest of
equal protection. The Act itself brands the denial of the franchise
to 18-year-olds as "a particularly unfair treatment of such
citizens in view of the national defense responsibilities imposed"
on them. § 301 (a)(1), Voting Rights Act, 84 Stat. 318. The
fact that only males are drafted while the vote extends to females
as well is not relevant, for the female component of these families
or prospective families is also caught up in war and hit hard
by it. Congress might well believe that men and women alike should
share the fateful decision.
It is said, why draw the line at 18? Why not
17? Congress can draw lines and I see no reason why it cannot
conclude that 18-year-olds have that degree of maturity which
entitles them to the franchise. They are "generally considered
by American law to be mature enough to contract, to marry, to
drive an automobile, to own a gun, and to be responsible for criminal
behavior as an adult." 7
Moreover, we are advised that under state laws, mandatory school
attendance does not, as a matter of practice, extend beyond the
age of 18. On any of these items the States, of course, have leeway
to raise or lower the age requirements. But voting is "a
fundamental matter in a free and democratic society," Reynolds
v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533, 561-562. Where "fundamental rights
and liberties are asserted under the Equal Protection Clause,
classifications which might invade or restrain them must be closely
scrutinized and carefully confined." Harper v. Virginia Board
of Elections, 383 U.S. 663, 670. There we were speaking of state
restrictions on those rights. Here we are dealing with the right
of Congress to "enforce" the principles of equality
enshrined in the Fourteenth Amendment. The right to "enforce"
granted by § 5 of that Amendment is, as noted, parallel with
the Necessary and Proper Clause whose reach Chief Justice Marshall
described in McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 421: "Let
the end be legitimate, let it be within the scope of the constitution,
and all means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted
to that end, which are not prohibited, but consist with the letter
and spirit of the constitution, are constitutional."
Equality of voting by all who are deemed mature
enough to vote is certainly consistent "with the letter and
spirit of the constitution." Much is made of the fact that
Art. I, § 4, of the Constitution 8
gave Congress only the power to regulate the "Manner of holding
Elections," not the power to fix qualifications for voting
in elections. But the Civil War Amendments -- the Thirteenth,
Fourteenth, and Fifteenth -- made vast inroads on the power of
the States. Equal protection became a standard for state action
and Congress was given authority to "enforce" it. See
Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641, 647. The manner of enforcement
involves discretion; but that discretion is largely entrusted
to the Congress, not to the courts. If racial discrimination were
the only concern of the Equal Protection Clause, then across-the-board
voting regulations set by the States would be of no concern to
Congress. But it is much too late in history to make that claim,
as the cases listed in the Appendix to this opinion show. Moreover,
election inequalities created by state laws and based on factors
other than race may violate the Equal Protection Clause, as we
have held over and over again. The reach of § 5 to "enforce"
equal protection by eliminating election inequalities would seem
quite broad. Certainly there is not a word of limitation in §
5 which would restrict its applicability to matters of race alone.
And if, as stated in McCulloch v. Maryland, the measure of the
power of Congress is whether the remedy is consistent "with
the letter and spirit of the constitution," we should have
no difficulty here. We said in Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368,
381: "The conception of political equality from the Declaration
of Independence, to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, to the Fifteenth,
Seventeenth, and Nineteenth Amendments can mean only one thing
-- one person, one vote."
It is a reasoned judgment that those who have
such a large "stake" in modern elections as 18-year-olds,
whether in times of war or peace, should have political equality.
As was made plain in the dissent in Colegrove v. Green, 328 U.S.
549, 566 (whose reasoning was approved in Gray v. Sanders, 372
U.S. 368, 379), the Equal Protection Clause does service to protect
the right to vote in federal as well as in state elections.
I would sustain the choice which Congress has
made.
II
I likewise find the objections that Arizona
and Idaho make to the literacy and residence requirements of the
1970 Act to be insubstantial.
Literacy. We held in Lassiter v. Northampton
Election Board, 360 U.S. 45, that a State could apply a literacy
test in selecting qualified voters provided the test is not "discriminatory"
and does not contravene "any restriction that Congress, acting
pursuant to its constitutional powers, has imposed." Id.,
at 51. The question in these cases is whether Congress has the
power under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to bar literacy
tests in all federal, state, or local elections.
Section 201 bars a State from denying the right
to vote in any federal, state, or local election because of "any
test or device" which is defined, inter alia, to include
literacy. 9 We traveled most
of the distance needed to sustain this Act in Katzenbach v. Morgan,
384 U.S. 641, where we upheld the constitutionality of an earlier
Act which prohibited the application of English literacy tests
to persons educated in Puerto Rico. The power of Congress in §
5 to "enforce" the Equal Protection Clause was sufficiently
broad, we held, to enable it to abolish voting requirements which
might pass muster under the Equal Protection Clause, absent an
Act of Congress. Id., at 648-651.
The question, we said, was whether the Act
of Congress was "appropriate legislation to enforce the Equal
Protection Clause":
"It was well within congressional authority
to say that this need of the Puerto Rican minority for the vote
warranted federal intrusion upon any state interests served by
the English literacy requirement. It was for Congress, as the
branch that made this judgment, to assess and weigh the various
conflicting considerations -- the risk or pervasiveness of the
discrimination in governmental services, the effectiveness of
eliminating the state restriction on the right to vote as a means
of dealing with the evil, the adequacy or availability of alternative
remedies, and the nature and significance of the state interests
that would be affected by the nullification of the English literacy
requirement as applied to residents who have successfully completed
the sixth grade in a Puerto Rican school. It is not for us to
review the congressional resolution of these factors. It is enough
that we be able to perceive a basis upon which the Congress might
resolve the conflict as it did." Id., at 653.
We also held that the Act might be sustained
as an attack on the English language test as a device to discriminate.
Id., at 654. And we went on to say that Congress might have concluded
that "as a means of furthering the intelligent exercise of
the franchise, an ability to read or understand Spanish is as
effective as ability to read English for those to whom Spanish-language
newspapers and Spanish-language radio and television programs
are available to inform them of election issues and governmental
affairs." Id., at 655.
We took a further step toward sustaining the
present type of law in Gaston County v. United States, 395 U.S.
285. That decision involved a provision of the Voting Rights Act
of 1965 which suspended the use of any "test or device,"
including literacy, as a prerequisite to registration in a State
which was found by the Attorney General and the Director of the
Census to have used it in any election on November 1, 1964, and
in which less than 50% of the residents of voting age were registered
or had voted. 10 Gaston County,
North Carolina, was so classified and its literacy test was thereupon
suspended. In a suit to remove the ban we sustained it. We noted
that Congress had concluded that "the County deprived its
black residents of equal educational opportunities, which in turn
deprived them of an equal chance to pass the literacy test."
Id., at 291. Congress, it was argued, should have employed a formula
based on educational disparities between the races or one based
on literacy rates. Id., at 292. But the choice of appropriate
remedies is for Congress and the range of available ones is wide.
It was not a defect in the formula that some literate Negroes
would be turned out by Negro schools.
"It is only reasonable to infer that among
black children compelled to endure a segregated and inferior education,
fewer will achieve any given degree of literacy than will their
better-educated white contemporaries. And on the Government's
showing, it was certainly proper to infer that Gaston County's
inferior Negro schools provided many of its Negro residents with
a subliterate education, and gave many others little inducement
to enter or remain in school." Id., at 295-296.
By like reasoning Congress in the present legislation
need not make findings as to the incidence of literacy. It can
rely on the fact that most States do not have literacy tests;
that the tests have been used at times as a discriminatory weapon
against some minorities, not only Negroes but Americans of Mexican
ancestry, and American Indians; that radio and television have
made it possible for a person to be well informed even though
he may not be able to read and write. We know from the legislative
history that these and other desiderata influenced Congress in
the choice it made in the present legislation; and we certainly
cannot say that the means used were inappropriate.
Residence. The residency requirements of §
202 relate only to elections for President and Vice President.
Section 202 abolishes durational residency 11
and provides for absentee voting provided that registration may
be required 30 days prior to the election. The effect of §
202 is to reduce all state durational residency requirements to
30 days.
In presidential elections no parochial interests
of the State, county, or city are involved. Congress found that
a durational residency requirement "in some instances has
the impermissible purpose or effect of denying citizens the right
to vote." § 202 (a)(4). It found in § 202 (a)(3)
that a durational residency requirement denies citizens their
privileges and immunities. 12
The Seventeenth Amendment states that Senators
shall be "elected by the people." Article I, §
2, provides that the House shall be chosen "by the People
of the several States." The right to vote for national officers
is a privilege and immunity of national citizenship. Ex parte
Yarbrough, 110 U.S. 651; In re Quarles, 158 U.S. 532, 534; Twining
v. New Jersey, 211 U.S. 78, 97; Burroughs v. United States, 290
U.S. 534; United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299, 315. 13
The Fourteenth Amendment provides that: "No
State shallmake or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges
or immunities of citizens of the United States." Durational
residency laws of the States had such effect, says Congress. The
"choice of means" to protect such a privilege presents
"a question primarily addressed to the judgment of Congress."
Burroughs v. United States, supra, at 547. The relevance of the
means which Congress adopts to the condition sought to be remedied,
the degree of their necessity, and the extent of their efficacy
are all matters for Congress. Id., at 548.
The judgment which Congress has made respecting
the ban of durational residency in presidential elections is plainly
a permissible one in its efforts under § 5 to "enforce"
the Fourteenth Amendment.
APPENDIX TO OPINION OF DOUGLAS, J.
Cases which have struck down state statutes
under the Equal Protection Clause other than statutes which discriminate
on the basis of race.
STATUTES WHICH DISCRIMINATED AGAINST CERTAIN
BUSINESSES
Gulf, C. & S. F. R. Co. v. Ellis, 165 U.S.
150; Atchison, T. & S. F. R. Co. v. Vosburg, 238 U.S. 56 (railroad
must pay attorney fees if it loses suit, but other businesses
need not). Kentucky Finance Corp. v. Paramount Auto Exchange,
262 U.S. 544; Power Co. v. Saunders, 274 U.S. 490 (burdens placed
upon out-of-state corporations in litigation).
STATUTES WHICH FAVORED CERTAIN BUSINESSES
Connolly v. Union Sewer Pipe Co., 184 U.S.
540 (exemption from state antitrust law for agricultural goods);
Smith v. Cahoon, 283 U.S. 553 (act exempting certain motor vehicles
from insurance requirements); Mayflower Farms v. Ten Eyck, 297
U.S. 266 (act allowing certain milk dealers to sell at lower than
the regulated price); Hartford Co. v. Harrison, 301 U.S. 459 (statute
permitting mutual, but not stock, insurance companies to act through
salaried representatives), and Morey v. Dowd, 354 U.S. 457 (American
Express exempted from licensing requirements applied to "currency
exchanges").
TAXING STATUTES STRUCK DOWN
Concordia Ins. Co. v. Illinois, 292 U.S. 535;
Iowa-Des Moines Bank v. Bennett, 284 U.S. 239; Cumberland Coal
Co. v. Board, 284 U.S. 23; Quaker City Cab Co. v. Pennsylvania,
277 U.S. 389; Louisville Gas Co. v. Coleman, 277 U.S. 32; Hanover
Fire Ins. Co. v. Harding, 272 U.S. 494; Schlesinger v. Wisconsin,
270 U.S. 230; Sioux City Bridge v. Dakota County, 260 U.S. 441;
F. S. Royster Guano Co. v. Virginia, 253 U.S. 412; and Southern
R. Co. v. Greene, 216 U.S. 400.
TREATMENT OF CONVICTED CRIMINALS
Rinaldi v. Yeager, 384 U.S. 305 (statute requiring
unsuccessful criminal appellants who were in jail to pay cost
of trial transcript); Baxstrom v. Herold, 383 U.S. 107 (statute
denying convict a sanity hearing before a jury prior to civil
commitment); and Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535 (sterilization
of some convicts).
INDIGENTS
Douglas v. California, 372 U.S. 353 (Rule of
Criminal Procedure which did not provide counsel for appeal to
indigents); and Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618 (denial of welfare
benefits based on residency requirement).
LEGITIMACY
Glona v. American Guarantee Co., 391 U.S. 73
(mother denied right to sue for wrongful death of illegitimate
child); and Levy v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 68 (illegitimate children
denied recovery for wrongful death of mother).
ALIENS
Truax v. Raich, 239 U.S. 33 (statute limiting
the number of aliens that could be employed to 20%); and Takahashi
v. Fish & Game Commission, 334 U.S. 410 (denial of fishing
rights to aliens ineligible for citizenship).
---- Begin EndNotes ----
1 Strauder
was tried for murder. He had sought removal to federal courts
on the ground that "by virtue of the laws of the State of
West Virginia no colored man was eligible to be a member of the
grand jury or to serve on a petit jury in the State." Id.,
at 304. He was convicted of murder and the West Virginia Supreme
Court affirmed. This Court held the West Virginia statute limiting
jury duty to whites only unconstitutional:
"We do not say that within the limits from which it is not excluded by the amendment a State may not prescribe the qualifications of its jurors, and in so doing make discriminations. . . . [The aim of the Fourteenth Amendment] was against discrimination because of race or color." 100 U.S., at 310.
2 Gray v. Sanders, 372 U.S. 368; Davis v. Mann, 377 U.S. 678; Swann v. Adams, 385 U.S. 440; Kilgarlin v. Hill, 386 U.S. 120; Avery v. Midland County, 390 U.S. 474; Moore v. Ogilvie, 394 U.S. 814; Hadley v. Junior College District, 397 U.S. 50.
3 Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533; WMCA v. Lomenzo, 377 U.S. 633; Roman v. Sincock, 377 U.S. 695.
4 Williams v. Rhodes, 393 U.S. 23. We also held in federal elections that the command of Art. I, § 2, of the Constitution that representatives be chosen "by the People of the several States" means that "as nearly as is practicable one man's vote in a congressional election is to be worth as much as another's," Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, 7-8, and that that meant "vote-diluting discrimination" could not be accomplished "through the device of districts containing widely varied numbers of inhabitants." Id., at 8; Lucas v. Colorado General Assembly, 377 U.S. 713; Kirkpatrick v. Preisler, 394 U.S. 526; Wells v. Rockefeller, 394 U.S. 542.
5 Ex parte Siebold, 100 U.S. 371; Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U.S. 651; Guinn v. United States, 238 U.S. 347; United States v. Mosley, 238 U.S. 383; Lane v. Wilson, 307 U.S. 268; United States v. Classic, 313 U.S. 299; United States v. Saylor, 322 U.S. 385.
6 We noted
that general obligation bonds may be satisfied not from real property
taxes but from revenues from other local taxes paid by nonowners
of property as well as those who own realty. Moreover, we noted
that property taxes paid initially by property owners are often
passed on to tenants or customers. 399 U.S., at 209-211.
7 Engdahl, Constitutionality of the Voting Age Statute, 39 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1, 36 (1970).
8 Article
I, § 4, provides: "[1] The Times, Places and Manner
of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be
prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress
may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except
as to the Places of chusing Senators.
"[2] The Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by Law appoint a different Day."
9 Section
201 (b) defines "test or device" as "any requirement
that a person as a prerequisite for voting or registration for
voting (1) demonstrate the ability to read, write, understand,
or interpret any matter, (2) demonstrate any educational achievement
or his knowledge of any particular subject, (3) possess good moral
character, or (4) prove his qualifications by the voucher of registered
voters or members of any other class." 84 Stat. 315.
10 The constitutionality of that procedure has been sustained in South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301.
11 This
Court upheld durational residency requirements as applied in presidential
and vice-presidential elections absent an Act of Congress. See
Drueding v. Devlin, 234 F.Supp. 721 (Md. 1964), aff'd, 380 U.S.
125. Subsequently we vacated as moot a case presenting the same
question. Hall v. Beals, 396 U.S. 45. The district courts have
been faced with the issue of durational residency requirements
as they would be applied to congressional elections. Two have
concluded the requirement is constitutional. Howe v. Brown, 319
F.Supp. 862 (ND Ohio 1970); Cocanower v. Marston, 318 F.Supp.
402 (Ariz. 1970). Additionally, one other court has refused a
preliminary injunction in a case presenting the issue. Piliavin
v. Hoel, 320 F.Supp. 66 (WD Wis. 1970). Some district courts,
however, believe that Drueding cannot stand (absent an Act of
Congress) after Carrington v. Rash, 380 U.S. 89; Kramer v. Union
School District, 395 U.S. 621; Cipriano v. City of Houma, 395
U.S. 701, and Phoenix v. Kolodziejski, 399 U.S. 204. Accordingly
they have held durational residency requirements for congressional
elections (and by implication presidential elections) violate
the Equal Protection Clause. See Burg v. Canniffe, 315 F.Supp.
380 (Mass. 1970); Blumstein v. Ellington, F.Supp. (MD Tenn. 1970);
Hadnott v. Amos, 320 F.Supp. 107 (MD Ala. 1970); Bufford v. Holton,
319 F.Supp. 843 (ED Va. 1970).
In none of these cases was an Act of Congress involved.
12 Article
IV, § 2, of the Constitution provides:
"The Citizens of each State shall be entitled
to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States."
The Fourteenth Amendment provides in §
1 that: "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United
States."
13 The
cases relied on by my Brother HARLAN, post, at 214, are not to
the contrary. Snowden v. Hughes, 321 U.S. 1, 7, states:
"The right to become a candidate for state
office, like the right to vote for the election of state officers
. . . is a right or privilege of state citizenship." (Emphasis
added.) Arguably Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162, is to the
contrary, but to the extent its dicta indicated otherwise, it
was limited in Ex parte Yarbrough. Breedlove v. Suttles, 302 U.S.
277, overruled by Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections, 383 U.S.
663, involved a poll tax applied in both federal and state elections;
it erroneously cited Yarbrough for the proposition voting is not
a privilege and immunity of national citizenship. Pope v. Williams,
193 U.S. 621, involved durational residency requirements, but
expressly reserved the question of their application to presidential
and vice-presidential elections. Our holdings concerning privileges
and immunities of national citizenship were analyzed less than
five years ago by my Brother HARLAN. After referring to Ex parte
Yarbrough, and United States v. Classic, he stated that those
cases "are essentially concerned with the vindication of
important relationships with the Federal Government -- voting
in federal elections, involvement in federal law enforcement,
communicating with the Federal Government." United States
v. Guest, 383 U.S. 745, 772 (separate opinion) (emphasis added).
Contrary to the suggestion of my Brother HARLAN,
post, at 213, we need not rely on the power of Congress to declare
the meaning of § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment. This Court
had determined that voting for national officers is a privilege
and immunity of national citizenship. No congressional declaration
was necessary. Congressional power under § 5 of the Fourteenth
Amendment is, as stated, buttressed by congressional power under
the Necessary and Proper Clause. Thus even if the durational residency
requirements do not violate the Privileges and Immunities Clause,
Congress can determine that it is necessary and proper to abolish
them in national elections to effectuate and further the purpose
of § 1 as it has been declared by this Court.
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