It wasn’t just some Pelosi statement: the Democrats intend to give 16-year-olds the vote
I wrote a post yesterday about Nancy Pelosi’s statement, “I myself have always been for lowering the voting age to 16…I think it’s really important to capture kids when they’re in high school…”
But today I want to emphasize that this was not just some isolated statement of Pelosi’s. While I very much doubt that Pelosi actually has been in favor of this for long, much less “always,” she most definitely did not just think of it when she made the statement last Thursday.
In fact, this is part of a movement within the Democratic Party. The question recently came up for a vote in the House on March 6, as an amendment to the Democrats’ For the People Act, a vast piece of “voting-reform” legislation otherwise known as H.R.1. There was quite a bit of criticism from the right about that bill at the time (see, for example, this and this), but most of it seemed to focus on aspects other than voting for 16-year-olds.
That amendment didn’t become part of the bill. But 126 Democrats (and one Republican, Michael Burgess of Texas) voted in favor of the amendment to have 16-year-olds vote in federal elections. That’s a majority of the Democrats in the House. So right now the Democrats didn’t have the votes to add this, but a very substantial majority of them were in favor of it, and not just the youngsters.
This needs to be taken very very seriously. I believe they are intent on doing it in a few years, as the party veers ever more leftward—if they ever get control of House, Senate, and the Presidency. The only way they can be stopped, other than voting them out of office, would be a constitutional amendment saying, for example, that the voting age in federal elections can be raised above 18 but not lowered below it.
Could such an amendment pass? I don’t know, but it better happen soon or it could be too late. It takes a long time to pass an amendment, as well. At present, the vast majority of Americans are not in favor of 16-year-olds voting: “The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that just 17% of Likely U.S. Voters favor lowering the legal national voting age from 18 to 16. Seventy-four percent (74%) are opposed.”
How long will that last? The Democrats are beginning to try to norm the idea and get us all used to it. Just as an example, there was this in the WaPo from a year ago, in which the case is being made for the benefits of lowering the voting age:
There are two good reasons to reduce the voting age. First, it is likely to help young people establish the habit of voting lifelong. Second, as my recently published research shows, it makes their parents more likely to vote as well.
I don’t give a rat’s patootie about either. I’m in favor of protecting people’s right to vote if they are non-felon citizens. They shouldn’t have to leap over extraordinary hurdles or face great obstacles to voting, either. But other than that, it’s their decision, as well as their responsibility. Adults are adults, and they don’t need to be coaxed into voting. Children shouldn’t be voting. The idea that children should be allowed to vote in order to make voting a habit, and or in order to coax their reluctant parents into voting, holds zero weight with me.
The Democrats feel, of course, that this entire enterprise will result in an enormous political advantage for them. And so it might. But it is also absurd and ill-conceived on its face. But don’t make the mistake of not taking it seriously.
[NOTE: I wondered who Burgess of Texas is, and why he was the sole Republican voting for it. So I looked it up, and here is his reason, apparently:
Those who pay taxes should have a voice in our democracy. As a teen, I worked & paid taxes. This week I voted for an amdt that would give young adults the right to vote – it failed by a wide margin. I support policies that encourage work & this could be part of the conversation.
Oh really, Rep. Burgess? As the author of the article where I found that quote says:
What about those who don’t pay taxes? What about those who work but don’t make enough to pay taxes? Let’s have that conversation.
No, we won’t be having that conversation. But Burgess’s reasoning appears extremely flawed, to say the least.]
I am embarrassed to say that I just read the 26th Amend. and understood it for the first time, in this context. The left is going to (and already has) taken federalism and crammed it down our throats. The only short term solution I see is to whip the Dems mercilessly in the court of public opinion over the notion of letting children vote.
I propose the 28th Amend. Repeal the 26th, and require an age of 23 to vote.
Congressman Burgess:
Two comments:
1)From what I have read, not as many teens are working nowadays compared to a generation or two ago, which makes his observation less valid.
2) I believe that about 47% of taxpayers do not pay Federal Income Tax. Is Congressman Burgess suggesting that they shouldn’t be able to vote? 🙂
This needs to be taken very very seriously.
neo: You’ve got me alarmed and I mean that seriously.
Some party hack decreed that the people
had lost the government’s confidence
and could only regain it with redoubled effort.
If that is the case, would it not be simpler,
If the government simply dissolved the people
And elected another?
–Bertolt Brecht
Of course Brecht was a committed Marxist and dedicated his art to social change. I still like the quote and think it works just as well, maybe even better, when a leftist government is in charge.
Lowing the voting age and destroying the Electoral College are becoming mainstays of the Left. Vote Republican while you can still make a difference.
So if 16 yrs old’s can vote, what about legal sex under 18 or gun ownership? What else would 16 yr old’s demand? No one over 50 can vote?
Let’s toss this into the mix:
Anyone who is serving or who has served in the military IN A COMBAT ROLE [desk job doesn’t count] gets to vote.
All others get to vote once turning age 25 (by which time most have lived in the real world, rather than in mommy’s/daddy’s world or in a college campus world).
So, 16-year-olds will also be able to sign legally-binding contracts…right?…and will be tried and sentenced as adults if they commit a crime.
David Foster on March 19, 2019 at 6:17 pm:
R-I-I-I-I-I-I-GHT.
Actually, I’ve liked the following idea for a long time now:
The idea is to do voting like we were shareholders in a company, or in a mutual fund. You get a vote in direct proportion to the stake (shares) you have in USA — as calculated by the dollar amount of taxes you paid in during the last fiscal year. [Don’t worry, the rich don’t pay much if anything in taxes, remember?]
Unfortunately, there are far too many genuine problems with this idea for it to be implemented.
It’s instep with giving minors “rights”. Parents, as seen in the eyes of modernists, are only there to give life to said child, be “real” about sex, and allow them to identify however and date whomever they want. They are only there to house, feed and clothe the child. Any values handed down, especially conservative values and thoughts, are not the values and thoughts a secular world wants. If you don’t agree with your transgender child that he/she is a she/he then it’s considered mental abuse. Isn’t at 12 years (or is it 14) old girls can ask their physician for birth control without a parent’s consent? Now give the kid the right to vote at the age of 16. Depending on what school they go to topics like global warming/climate change is a main lesson/theme. How many 15/16 year olds vote (R)? How many have had the chance to learn about conservative beliefs in a fair and thorough way? The percent is probably a single digit. Two years later they’re 18 and in the Western world 18 isn’t seen “just another age” – it’s seen as “you can do whatever you want.”
So the secular modern left has indirectly chopped up parental influence, especially between the ages of 13-18. They know at age 18, Western culture embraces “you can do whatever you want because you’re 18” which the left has taken advantage of: enter university life and the “learning” that goes on outside of STEM.
The “good reasons” aren’t even good reasons.
>First, it is likely to help young people establish the habit of voting lifelong.
Hogwash. Democrats/The Left just want more votes, taking advantage of the really naive. I remember reading that Catholic school kids displayed for civic pride and were involved more civically than their public counterparts. Maybe it’s the issue with public education, not the current voting age.
>Second, as my recently published research shows, it makes their parents more likely to vote as well.
I call BS on the “research.” Many seniors are 18 while in high school, so why does two years make a difference on whether the parents are influenced to vote or not?
@ MJR: “Anyone who is serving or who has served in the military IN A COMBAT ROLE [desk job doesn’t count] gets to vote.” “All others get to vote once turning age 25 ”
Yea, no. There are many jobs that an enlistee can do that aren’t combative and unless there’s a war or international conflict some infantrymen won’t even fire a single bullet at an enemy throughout their 4 years. How about the teenagers who choose not to go to university or the military and work full-time? How about those who go into trades right after high school?
If you can’t win the game, change the rules.
GRA on March 19, 2019 at 7:37 pm:
Very valid criticisms. Maybe some way of combining my initial idea (5:55 pm military / at least 25 yrs) with my subsequent idea (6:46 pm proportional to tax burden )?
I think we should raise the voting age to 40.
Ok, I am being facetious.
Seriously, though… I really think that our vote should be weighted by how much tax we pay. I understand that this is radical, and not in the constitution. However, I am convinced that this is the only way to make government actually responsive to the taxpayers. I am also convinced that this system would result in the election of more competent leaders.
Your votes matter… haha
MJR & GRG:
I wrote my comment above before reading yours. I have actually give this some serious thought in the past starting about 15 years ago. I sort of stopped, because my ideas were so poorly received. It is nice to think that maybe the idea is gaining some traction.
There are two organizational models that are tested and proven to be both successful and stable. One is the military meritocracy and the other is the corporation.
The vote by proportion of tax burden is akin to the corporate model. I believe this would be stable and efficient, but I have some misgivings about how “human” it would be. A society and a country is about more than economics. Therefore, I think the corporate model must be combined with elements of other models.
Suppose that some artificial ranking of citizens were created based on the criteria important to the communities. This is the meritocracy model. The higher the citizen ranking, the more that citizens vote would be weighted.
So, perhaps a 50/50 mix of the corporate and meritocracy models would do the trick.
Comments welcome…
Once upon a time, we had a revolution one cause of which was the ballyhooed “Taxation without representation!” It seems to me that for too large a portion of our nation we have “Representation without taxation.”
Susanamantha, I completely agree! We are becoming a gimme, with no responsibilities culture. People want things without paying. The one who pays the piper should get to call the tune.
Susanamantha, more agreement. Insty calls it having skin in the game.
If you don’t have a stake in it then it’s just a popularity contest, not selecting someone to represent you.
16 year olds won’t even clean their bedrooms. None of them will ever make it to the voting booth.
Wouldn’t changing the voting age again require a Constitutional amendment as it did last time?
“None of them will ever make it to the voting booth.” The leftists will provide buses from high school to the voting location.
Related: Last week NPR’s Science Friday had a glowing report on #FridaysForFuture, the “global youth climate strike” started by a 16 year old in Sweden. The children interviewed want a Green New Deal to “rapidly overhaul every part of our economy and society.” The host asked if they would be satisfied if congress passed the GND. Their answer—absolutely not! I fear that we are not just moving towards disaster but accelerating.
The vote by proportion of tax burden is akin to the corporate model. I believe this would be stable and efficient, but I have some misgivings about how “human” it would be. A society and a country is about more than economics. Therefore, I think the corporate model must be combined with elements of other models.
Suppose that some artificial ranking of citizens were created based on the criteria important to the communities. This is the meritocracy model. The higher the citizen ranking, the more that citizens vote would be weighted.
Just combine both systems. Merit is certainly a factor in corporation shares as well. The CEO is usually given quite a number of shares in the company he manages. Gives him a stake.
The system should start by disallowing votes for those on welfare. Then focus on how much vote can be amplified by those with meritorious conduct in the direct electronic democracy.
16 year olds won’t even clean their bedrooms. None of them will ever make it to the voting booth.
They don’t have to make it to the voting booth given that Leftists will be their proxy voters. Roll call for corporations allows proxy voting by share holders.
Batemjo:
[the kids won’t] “make it to the voting booth.”
Have you read about “vote harvesting” in CA? They don’t need you to vote, they just need to have you receive a ballot, which they can then fill out and return for you.
What a wonderful idea allowing a government entity to establish a “meritorious conduct” metric that establishes who is a fully functional citizen, aka, everyone is equal some are just more equal than others. Are you aware of China’s social credit system? That couldn’t happen here, because ….. Not to bright, boys.
om,
You are correct in that that part of my concept is half-baked. I don’t really know how this could work. I just know that I don’t think that the vote by proportion of tax burden only would result in the government that I want to live with. I think that the corporate model must be tempered with another element to make the result more humane.
Associated thought: Could this modeled using Game Theory to test and optimize the system prior to trying it in real life?
Wouldn’t changing the voting age again require a Constitutional amendment as it did last time?
No. the language of the Amendment allows states to put the voting age where they please as long as the threshold does not exceed 18. However, apportionment rules are unaltered, so the effect might be to change the composition of a state’s congressional delegation or the probability a state’s electoral votes go one way or another, but not the weight of the state in federal elections.
We have in practice the antithesis of the social credit or meritorious conduct screen for voting already; people convicted of felonies are not allowed to vote in many states. The progressives feel that is another injustice, since of course the justice system is racist and oppressive. And so forth.
2) I believe that about 47% of taxpayers do not pay Federal Income Tax. Is Congressman Burgess suggesting that they shouldn’t be able to vote?
They pay payroll taxes. The economic burden of property and sales taxes is distributed between vendor and consumer, with varying shares falling on the latter. The latter would be anyone who buys a taxable commodity or rents an apartment.
Artdeco,
For the purposes of determining the weighting of votes, the sum of all taxes paid should be considered. As the new system comes into effect, I am sure that taxation systems would be revised, and overall taxation would be reapportioned. Tax “avoidance” would not be as a attractive as previously. Obviously, the people who pay the most taxes, will get to design the new collections systems. I doubt that many would choose to pay zero taxes and have no vote, but for those who so choose, at least they won’t have any say about how other people’s taxes are spent.
As Samantamantha said, “No representation without taxation.”