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Does the Supreme Court Really Believe in the Constitution?
Sometime in the next two weeks, when the justices of the Supreme Court meet in conference, they will decide the fate of an unusual under-the-radar lawsuit brought two years ago to enforce what the lawmakers who amended the Constitution in 1868 thought was the “most important” clause: Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Prospect has followed the story of the never-before-enforced provision that provides (omitting age and sex language that no longer apply) that “when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States [and other federal and state elections] is denied … or in any way abridged … the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in proportion which the number of such … citizens shall bear to the whole number” of citizens in such state.
To translate that 19th-century language, if a state unduly restricts the right to vote, it will lose representatives in the House to states that do not, as well as votes in the Electoral College. The framers of what is known as the Reduction Clause wanted to make sure that the states of the Confederacy readmitted to Congress would not swell their number of Representatives based on the now-eligible-to-vote number of formerly enslaved people, and then find ways, not always explicitly racial, to disfranchise those voters.
The case was brought by Jared Pettinato, a former U.S. Department of Justice lawyer, on behalf of Citizens for Constitutional Integrity, an organization of voters, against the Census Bureau. The plaintiffs claim the Bureau has been given broad statutory authority to collect data and apportion representatives, but in doing so has failed to follow the Constitution. The Bureau, represented by the Department of Justice, denies that it has that authority.
The lower courts have dodged the ultimate question of whether the government must implement the Reduction Clause by ruling that Citizens for Constitutional Integrity has not complied with the law of standing, which requires proof of a certain level of redressable harm before a court will reach the merits of a claim.
To translate that 19th-century language, if a state unduly restricts the right to vote, it will lose representatives in the House to states that do not, as well as votes in the Electoral College. The framers of what is known as the Reduction Clause wanted to make sure that the states of the Confederacy readmitted to Congress would not swell their number of Representatives based on the now-eligible-to-vote number of formerly enslaved people, and then find ways, not always explicitly racial, to disfranchise those voters.
The case was brought by Jared Pettinato, a former U.S. Department of Justice lawyer, on behalf of Citizens for Constitutional Integrity, an organization of voters, against the Census Bureau. The plaintiffs claim the Bureau has been given broad statutory authority to collect data and apportion representatives, but in doing so has failed to follow the Constitution. The Bureau, represented by the Department of Justice, denies that it has that authority.
The lower courts have dodged the ultimate question of whether the government must implement the Reduction Clause by ruling that Citizens for Constitutional Integrity has not complied with the law of standing, which requires proof of a certain level of redressable harm before a court will reach the merits of a claim.
https://prospect.org/justice/2025-06-13-supreme-court-fourteenth-amendment-voting-rights/
8 replies
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and Leonard Leo and his Federalist Society.
They believe in Truth, unless the Truth will keep you from getting approved by the Senate. In that case, lie like hell and say a hail mary later.
