[EL] Arizona opinion

[Marty Lederman]

potentially huge implications for the Elections Clause, since the Court --
without dissent! -- appears to finally resolve that Congress can't set
qualifications for voting in federal elections (the issue that split the
Justices in Oregon v. Mitchell).

Under that ruling, what might be at stake?

For starters, UOCAVA, which requires a state to register for federal
elections any person who resides outside the United States and (but for
such residence) would be qualified to vote in that state if it was the last
place in which the person was domiciled before leaving the United States.

For another, this is a blow for any future efforts to enact a federal
statute preempting felon disenfranchisement laws.

What's more, when combined with other "recent" decisions (the Boerne line),
it would appear to call into question Congress's authority to enact three
statutes that the Court *upheld* in Oregon v. Mitchell:

i. requiring that 18-year-olds be permitted to vote in federal elections;
ii.  requiring that a State had to allow a new resident to vote for
President if she had moved to the State more than 30 days before the
election;
and
iii. requiring that a State had to permit a *previous* resident to vote for
President if he had moved *from *the state fewer than 30 days before a
federal election.

(Of course, the Justices relied on an array of rationales in Mitchell; but
the residency holdings were supported by eight Justices and the 18-year-old
vote by five -- and the other rationales in support of those holdings would
not necessarily stick today.)

Moreover, footnote 9 of the Scalia opinion at least leaves *open *the
question of whether Congress could prohibit Arizona from doing the
following:  (i) requiring proof of citizenship in order to register; and
then (ii) providing that "registration" is a qualification for voting.

Federal government might have won the battle, but as for the war . . .

On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 10:31 AM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu> wrote:

> http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/arizona-intertribal.pdf
>
> --
> Rick Hasen
> Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
> UC Irvine School of Law
> 401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
> Irvine, CA 92697-8000
> 949.824.3072 - office
> 949.824.0495 - fax
> rhasen at law.uci.edu
> http://law.uci.edu/faculty/page1_r_hasen.html
> http://electionlawblog.org
>
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing list
> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20130617/a4f1edc0/attachment.html>