Oregon v. Mitchell

400 U.S. 112 (1970), argued 19 Oct. 1970, decided 21 Dec. 1970 by vote of 5 to 4; black for the Court, Douglas, Harlan, Stewart, Brennan, White, Marshall, Burger, and Blackmun concurring in part and dissenting in part. In 1970 Congress passed amendments to the 1965 Voting Rights Act that extended the provisions of the original act for another five years. The amendments also standardized residency requirements for participation in national elections and, dramatically, lowered the voting age to eighteen years for national, state, and local elections. Congress based its action on the enforcement language of the Fifteenth Amendment. The legislation raised the issue of federalism anew because national legislators were attempting to regulate the time and manner of conducting state and local elections, a traditional prerogative of the states. When the issue came to the Supreme Court, the major question was whether Congress had the constitutional authority to lower the national minimum voting age.

In a decision with five opinions and no clear‐cut majority, the Court ruled that Congress did not have the power to so act with respect to state elections but did have the authority to set the voting age at eighteen in federal elections for Congress and the presidency. Four of the justices believed that Congress had total power to regulate the voting age in any election, while four others believed that Congress had no such absolute power; Justice Hugo Black cast the deciding vote, concluding that Congress could regulate the voting age in national but not in state elections.

To bring the confusion that followed the Court's ruling to a quick end, Congress immediately adopted the Twenty‐Sixth Amendment, which was ratified in short order. Reversing the Court's holding regarding voting age in state elections, the amendment states that “the rights of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be abridged by the United States of any state on account of age.”

See also Federalism; Vote, Right to.

— Howard Ball

Oregon v. Mitchell
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 20, 1970 Decided December 21, 1970
Full case name	Oregon v. Mitchell, Attorney General
Citations	400 U.S. 112 (more) 91 S. Ct. 260; 27 L. Ed. 2d 272; 1970 U.S. LEXIS 1
Holding
Congress may set requirements for voting in federal elections, but is prohibited from setting requirements in state and local elections.
Court membership
Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Associate Justices Hugo Black · William O. Douglas John M. Harlan II · William J. Brennan, Jr Potter Stewart · Byron White Thurgood Marshall · Harry Blackmun
Case opinions
Majority	Black
Concur/dissent	Douglas
Concur/dissent	Harlan
Concur/dissent	Brennan, White, Marshall
Concur/dissent	Stewart, joined by Burger, Blackmun
Laws applied
Necessary and Proper Clause, U.S. Const. art. I § 2 and 4, art. II § 1, Enforcement Clauses of the 14th and 15th Amendments, Voting Rights Act
Superseded by
in part by U.S. Const. amend. XXVI

Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U.S. 112 (1970),^[1] was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that states could set their own age limits for state elections.

Petitioner Oregon was the U.S. state of that name. Respondent Mitchell was John Mitchell in his role as United States Attorney General. Congress had passed an act requiring all states to register citizens between the ages of 18 and 21 as voters. Oregon did not desire to lower its voting age to 18, and filed suit on the grounds that the act was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court found largely for Oregon, in that it found that while Congress could set requirements for voting in federal elections that it did not have the power to set the voting age for state elections.

Contents 1 Enforcement 2 See also 3 References 4 Further reading 5 External links

Enforcement

Enforcement of this ruling would have proven to be problematic, since states not lowering the voting age to the age of 18 for state elections would have had to provide special federal-election only ballots to citizens between 18 and 20 voting in federal elections. States would have to maintain two sets of voting registries, one for those between the ages of 18 through 20 and another for those 21 and older.

This question became moot with the ratification of the Twenty-sixth Amendment the next year, which lowered the voting age to 18 for all elections in all states.

Though Oregon v. Mitchell affirmed the federal government's power to set a minimum voting age for federal elections, no case has tested whether the federal government possess the power to prevent states from lowering their voting ages to below 18 for federal elections since the federal government has not tried to prohibit states from doing so.

See also

• List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 400
• United States v. Butler, 297 U.S. 1 (1936)
• Carter v. Carter Coal Co., 298 U.S. 238 (1936)

References

1. ^ 400 U.S. 112 (Full text of the decision courtesy of Findlaw.com)

Further reading

• Cohen, William (1975). "Congressional Power to Interpret Due Process and Equal Protection". Stanford Law Review 27 (3): 603–620. doi:10.2307/1228329. 
• Greene, Richard S. (1972). "Congressional Power over the Elective Franchise: The Unconstitutional Phases of Oregon v. Mitchell". Boston University Law Review 52: 505. ISSN 0006-8047. 

External links

• Works related to Oregon v. Mitchell at Wikisource

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