Oregon v. Mitchell

The Court struck a balance between federal authority and state powers, allowing each level of government to regulate its own elections. The Court's ruling also prompted the passage of the Twenty-sixth Amendment, ensuring voting rights in all elections to all citizens over 18.

In the years following the Civil War, the United States had to find a way to legally incorporate thousands of freed slaves into society as citizens with constitutionally guarded rights. Congress sought to ensure the rights of these newly recognized citizens with the passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. These amendments, passed by Congress and ratified by the states between 1865 and 1870, abolished slavery, guaranteed full citizenship and protection of the law to every person born in the United States, and protected every person's right to vote, regardless of his skin color or history of servitude.

A century later, new problems faced the American electorate. Literacy tests in some states still deprived some disadvantaged minorities of their right to vote. State residency requirements sometimes prevented long-time U.S. citizens from casting ballots in federal elections because they had not lived in that particular state long enough. Young men between the ages of 18 and 21 found they were old enough to be drafted and sent to Vietnam, yet they were not allowed to vote.

In 1965 Congress passed the Voting Rights Act to address these problems. Congress voted in 1970 to extend the act's provisions for another five years, adding several amendments that banned the use of literacy tests, established uniform residency requirements and absentee ballot registration procedures for federal elections, and lowered the voting age in all local, state, and federal elections to 18. Both Oregon and Texas sued U.S. Attorney General John M. Mitchell to try to prevent Mitchell from enforcing the act in their states. The U.S. government also sued Arizona and Idaho on the grounds that those states refused to conform their laws to the act's provisions. All four cases were addressed in the Supreme Court's opinion in Oregon v. Mitchell.

Justice Black wrote the opinion of the Court, with four other justices writing partial concurrences and partial dissents. Basing his ruling on the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Black argued that the provision setting the minimum voting age for federal elections at 18 was constitutional, although the provision lowering voting age to 18 for state and local elections was not. Because Congress has the power under the Constitution to draw congressional districts, it also has the power to determine other qualifications of voters, Black said:

Surely no voter qualification was more important to the framers than the geographic qualification embodied in the concept of congressional districts.

Article I, section 4, of the Constitution gives states the right to make laws regarding the conduct of national elections, but it also provides that Congress may "alter such regulations" if it chooses. This provision, said Black, allows Congress to change the minimum voting age from 21 to 18 in federal elections.

But the Constitution also protects each state's right to run its local government as it decides, with minimal interference from the national government. States may choose to keep the minimum voting age for state and local elections at 21, and the federal government must respect that, Black said. Keeping the voting age at 21 does not deprive younger citizens of their voting rights in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause, Black said, because such age requirements do not discriminate on a racial basis.

The Fourteenth Amendment was surely not intended to make every discrimination between groups of people a constitutional denial of equal protection . . . the Civil War amendments were unquestionably designed to condemn and forbid every distinction, however trifling, on account of race.

Black also defended the Voting Rights Act's ban on literacy tests, pointing to the long history of such tests being used to prevent certain races of people from participating in the democratic process. Although Congress is not required to outlaw such tests, it is certainly allowed to do so on a national level to solve what has been the national problem of discrimination, Black said.

With respect to residency requirements, Black found that Congress may establish national guidelines in order to protect every citizen's right to vote in federal elections. Black found that such guidelines fall within Congress' "broad authority to create and maintain a national government."

Justice Douglas concurred in all parts of Black's opinion, except Douglas argued that the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause did allow Congress to tell state governments to lower the local voting age to eighteen. The Constitution recognizes voting as a fundamental civil liberty, Douglas said, and the Fifteenth Amendment mentions citizens' rights to vote in both federal and state elections. Douglas pointed to previous Supreme Court rulings in which provisions basing voting rights on occupation, place of residency, married status, or possession of property were found to violate the Equal Protection Clause. While the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause grew out of racial inequities, Douglas said, its applicability was not reserved for cases of racial discrimination alone.

Justices White and Marshall joined in Justice Brennan's concurrence, which agreed with the Black's opinion except for Black's holding that Congress could not lower state and local voting ages. Brennan also argued that citizens between ages 18 and 21 would be denied equal protection under the law if they were not allowed to vote.

In an excruciatingly thorough opinion, Justice Harlan laid out the historical background that gave rise to the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. While he agreed that Congress could lower the voting age in federal elections to 18 and ban the use of literacy tests, Harlan said neither the Constitution nor its amendments gave Congress the power to change the minimum voting age or residency requirements of states.

Justice Stewart, joined by Justices Burger and Blackmun, agreed with most of Black's ruling except Stewart said Congress lacked the power to lower the voting age for any election--federal, state or local. As Justice Stewart noted, the Supreme Court was not asked to decide whether allowing 18-year olds to vote was a good idea, only whether Congress had the power to enact such a law. Although the Court was split on the extent to which Congress could change the voting age, the American public still thought such a provision was a good idea. In 1971 Congress introduced, and the states ratified, the Twenty-sixth Amendment, giving every citizen 18 years or older the right to vote in all elections.