Hey all you lawyers out there, I was wondering if you could clear up some stuff.
Since Scalia has come out with the idea that there is no Constitutional right to vote for President, and therefore presumably the Florida Legislature can appoint any electors it damn well pleases, I decided to look up the actual language.
The relevant passage (as we all know by now) is this (Article II, Section 1):
"Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress..."
This seems ambiguous; "in such manner" could imply (it would seem to me, but IANAL...) that the legislature merely has the power to regulate the way in which electors are elected, not to appoint them itself. But since several state legislatures did, in fact, appoint elctors prior to the Civil War, it was apparently interpreted otherwise.
But reading furthur on, you come to this interesting tidbit, in the (post-civil war) 14th amendment:
"...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..."
Doesn't this seem to imply that, while the Florida legislature does have the right to remove from their people the right to vote for President, Florida would thereafter lose all of its representation in Congress?
Seems strange, but thats what it says. I haven't heard anyone in the media comment on it.
There's also this, from the 24th amendment (which, shamefully, I didn't even remember was in there):
"The right of citizens of the United States to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President, for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax."
What's interesting about this amendment, in contrast to the 13th and 19th which merely refer to a general "right to vote", is that it is specific about what sort of voteing is not to be abridged. Doesn't this imply that the rest of the Constitution implicitly recognizes a right to vote for electors?
This is just my feeble noodlings. Can of the real lawyers out there set me straight?
Jim Baird
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