Mark Pocan, Keith Ellison push to add right to vote to U.S. Constitution
Source: The Capital Times
Mark Pocan, Keith Ellison push to add right to vote to U.S. Constitution
4 hours ago By Jessie Opoien |
U.S. Reps. Mark Pocan and Keith Ellison introduced a proposal to add the right to vote to the U.S. Constitution. PHOTO BY JESSIE OPOIEN
Reps. Mark Pocan and Keith Ellison don't expect their proposal to explicitly grant the right to vote in the U.S. Constitution will be swiftly approved by Congress. But they plan to keep at it until it is.
The Democrats from Madison and Minneapolis spoke at Wisconsin's Capitol building on Thursday, backed by Madison area community leaders including Alds. Maurice Cheeks and Shiva Bidar-Sielaff and Dane County Supervisors Shelia Stubbs and Dorothy Krause.
The pair of progressive lawmakers introduced the same proposal in 2013 and and said support for the measure has grown significantly since then.
When Pocan was a state legislator, he sometimes likened the pace of the Legislature to that of a tortoise. If that's so, he said, Congress moves like "an upside-down tortoise" with its legs flailing in the air......
Read more: http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-politics/mark-pocan-keith-ellison-push-to-add-right-to-vote/article_57dcd853-17a8-54a2-b107-1520987803c5.html
Good for them. With all the voter suppression laws in so many states.. this is soooooooooooooooo needed.
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DavidDvorkin
(19,499 posts)NoJusticeNoPeace
(5,018 posts)someone like Dicky Nixon would say, we knew it was gonna be shit and lies, but the guy was a genius so he challenged you to keep up with is crimes.
Today they are all really dumb people.
NoJusticeNoPeace
(5,018 posts)appalachiablue
(41,183 posts)![](/emoticons/clap.gif)
valerief
(53,235 posts)BumRushDaShow
(129,737 posts)people STILL are kept from doing so.
The text of the proposed new Amendment (was getting an error from the link in the article but it's the same text as this - http://pocan.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/pocan-and-ellison-announce-right-to-vote-amendment)-
SECTION 2: Congress shall have the power to enforce and implement this article by appropriate legislation.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)So many GOP voted for Bush, Jr. thinking he was Bush, Sr., that I figure a cat or dog should be able to vote, too.
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Of course, there are good reasons to oppose my idea, as some people don't have birth certificates that satisfy the GOP.
I'm thinking that registration should be handed out to all people as soon as they are naturalized, too, if that's not already done.
One fo the things that Holder's DOJ did in MO was to hand out registrations to everyone they met. IIRC, they went door to door to get evidence of the oppressive conditions there.
Just tossing that one out there. If nothing else, this effort should put the notice to the GOP that the nation is getting wise to their shenanigans and obstruction.
suston96
(4,175 posts)Para. 2 - Amendment 14:
"Section 2.
Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state."
cascadiance
(19,537 posts)... but that states can't only allow voting in a discriminatory fashion. That is why the right should be codified, so that it is the obligation for the state to find the way to make sure everyone is able to vote, rather than finding ways to limit people's ability to vote unless they "work hard" through the paperwork to do get this ability to vote. Then a lot of this voting disenfranchisement would be unconstitutional, not just "inconvenient".
cascadiance
(19,537 posts)and not just use the nebulous term "person" that have allowed the PTB misconstrue the 14th amendment to give corporations the rights to "corporate personhood". If we aren't careful the way we write this, then corporations will find ways to make it so that corporations also have the "right" to vote in elections, and then they'll be qualified in the number of votes by the number of employees or something assinine like that. All it takes is a set of partisan courts to make this sort of law, which we seem to have going up the chain now to SCOTUS.