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Felony Disenfranchisement And The Nineteenth Amendment, Michael Gentithes

Akron Law Review

The Nineteenth Amendment and the history of the women’s suffrage movement can offer a compelling argument against felony disenfranchisement laws. These laws leave approximately six million citizens unable to vote, often for crimes wholly unrelated to the political process. They also increasingly threaten gains in female enfranchisement.

Today’s arguments in support of felony disenfranchisement laws bear striking similarities to the arguments of anti-suffragists more than a century earlier. Both suggest that a traditionally subordinated class of citizens is inherently incapable of bearing the responsibility that the right to vote entails, and that their votes are somehow less worthy than others. …

Does The Woman Suffrage Amendment Protect The Voting Rights Of Men?, Steve Kolbert

Seattle University Law Review

This Article—part of the Seattle University Law Review’s symposium on the centennial of the ratification of the Woman Suffrage Amendment—examines that open possibility. Concluding that the Nineteenth Amendment does protect men’s voting rights, this Article explores why and how that protection empowers Congress to address felon disenfranchisement and military voting. This Article also examines the advantages of using Nineteenth Amendment enforcement legislation compared to legislation enacted under other constitutional provisions.

Part I discusses the unique barriers to voting faced by voters with criminal convictions (Section I.A) and voters in the armed forces (Section I.B). This Part also explains how existing …

"Airbrushed Out Of The Constitutional Canon": The Evolving Understanding Of Giles V. Harris, 1903-1925, Samuel Brenner

Michigan Law Review

Richard H. Pildes argued in an influential 2000 article that the U.S. Supreme Court's opinion in Giles v. Harris, which was written by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, was the "one decisive turning point" in the history of "American (anti)-democracy." In Giles, Holmes rejected on questionable grounds Jackson W. Giles's challenge to the new Alabama Constitution of 1901-a document which was designed to disfranchise and had the effect of disfranchising African Americans. The decision thus contributed significantly to the development of the all-white electorate in the South, and the concomitant marginalization of southern African Americans. According to Pildes, however, the …