A hypothetical constitutional question (warning: some dense reading)

[CTLawGuy]

For all the constitutional law buffs out there...

I am interested to know what you think of this particular fictional case.

23 year old Kenneth Johnson, from Miami, FL, is inspired to get involved in the political process when he hears of the atrocities committed by the Bush Administration at Abu Ghraib prison.


He decides the best course of action is for him to run for US Congress. Despite knowing he is too young, he fulfills all the non-age requirements for filing and attempts to file for office. The Secretary of State's office denies his application on the grounds that he is not yet 25 years of age, which is a constitutional requirement to file for the office of US Congress. He sues the Secretary of State in Florida state court. There, he asks the judge to compel his placement on the ballot for the upcoming election. The case makes its way to the US Supreme Court.

Kenneth Johnson argued...

I understand that Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution states an age limit of 25 for US House. However, the 14th Amendment provides for equal protection. Court precedent says that any law that discriminates against a class of citizens, (in this case, persons younger than 25) that deals with a "Fundamental Right", which has in the past been defined as the right to participate in the political process (ie run for office), must have a heavy assumption of unconstitutionality.

In plain English, that means that the government can only bar a 23 year old from running for Congress if they have a REALLY REALLY good reason. The government has zero logical reason to bar my filing for office due to my age. I am a registered voter and a legal adult.

Article I of the constitution compels the ban on me filing for office, and the 14th Amendment prohibits it. There is a contradiction. If there is a contradiction in law, then the Court must take the later provision as overruling the earlier one. The Court should assume that if those who made the 14th amendment wanted to keep the age limit, they would have explicitly said so. They did not say so. Since the 14th Amendment came later than article I of the constitution, the 14th Amendment must take precedence, and I must be allowed to file for Congress.


The State argued as follows...

We cannot come up with a logical reason to bar a 23 year old from running for office other than that is what the Constitution requires. Mr. Johnson is wrong in his interpretation of the constitiution, however. When the government created the 14th Amendment, they didn't intend it to cancel out the age requirement in Article I. We could understand Mr. Johnson's case if the age limit was a simple law, which can be overruled. It is not, it is part of the Constitution. The Court should interpret the Constitution firstly in a way so that it does not contridict itself. If it absolutely cannot, then it must cancel out the earlier provision. Since the 14th Amendment does not ban ALL discrimination, we have leeway to allow the age limit despite the fact it is discrimination. We can assume that those who wrote the 14th amendment meant to KEEP the age limit. So we wouldn't be violating the spirit of the 14th Amendment to keep it now. Mr. Johnson should be barred from running for Congress.



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Sorry for the denseness of these arguments. Let me know what you think.

Should Kenneth Johnson be allowed to run for Congress?

[unblock]

1. easy case. though, not impressed with the state's arguments

the government does have a compelling reason to have age requirements for our most important governmental offices. i'm sure there the history buffs can dredge up 18th century arguments on the topic, but the jist is that the the government is well within reason to insist on a certain level of maturation for such high offices.

as to the complainant's argument, the 14th amendment has been repeatedly upheld as not intending to eliminate age discrimination with respect to minimum age requirements.

[CTLawGuy]

6. since when does age = maturation

look at Tom Delay...


Do you think that people would just not vote for someone they thought was too young? Why have a ban at all?

[patriotvoice]

16. It is not a "ban," but a requirement.

There is no logical ("based upon axioms", in this case "laws") justification to have the requirement; a highly educated fourteen year old with a deep political understanding could exercise the position with as much acuity as any other individual.

However, the court has a rational ("predicated on sanity") justification: namely to protect the interests of the body politic by establishing a "wisdom gate" that is universally ("Constitutionally") acknowledged.

We have "wisdom gates" every where: 16 years old to marry (varies by region), 18 to vote and smoke, 21 to drink. In some organizations, you cannot advance without a certain amount of time put in (eg the Boy Scouts of America). These are established and defined to precisely quantify the acceptible societal norm for maturity to carry out the position.

On edit:
Word choice

[TheWizardOfMudd]

2. You made some big leaps . . .

. . . when you implied that the Fourteenth Amendment creates fundamental rights, and that the right to participate in the political process includes the right to run for office.

It is obviously not fundamental that you have the right to run for that office unless you are at least 25. In fact, the text of the Constitution makes it clear that no person has any such fundamental right.

[CTLawGuy]

5. it doesn't create fundamental rights per se

but it acknowledges that some rights are very important, so they take discrimination very seriously when it comes to these rights, this includes voting and participating in the political process.

the important thing is not that they're running for office while under 25, the point is just that they are running for office, and the question is, does the government have a really good reason for stopping people unde 25 from doing so?

If they banned driving a car to people under 25, the state would have an easier time justifying it, since driving a car is not really fundamental to a functioning democracy.

[TheWizardOfMudd]

9. When the several states ratified the Constitution . . .

. . . and when additional states joined the Union, certain powers were granted to the Federal government by the people. One of those powers was the power of the Federal government to require a few qualifications to hold office, as expressly stated in the original Constitution.

It really is that simple.

The only remedy would be to amend the Constitution to lower the age requirement for the particular office.

The Constitution is, in concept, a framework. However, specific provisions can only be nullified by specific amendments.

Its only good sense.

[DRoseDARs]

3. I'd prefer my federal-level officials to have master's degrees...

...Not some kid that maybe just finished 4 years and has a bachelor's or worse just an associate's degree. State-level and lower might be acceptable, but I'd still prefer a college graduate over some high-minded 20-something.

I'd go so far as to want the age limit to be increased (or decreased as the executive limit is higher) to 30 years across the board at the federal-level (all three branches), not state-level or lower, so that anyone running for office has both time to get a good education in college and get real-world experience in politics by interning with elected officials or other means of political involvment. At state-level and lower a lesser age limit, say 25, would help further open up this country's political process to younger generations wanting to get their feet wet.

No, I don't feel Kenneth Johnson should be allowed to run. The US Constitution is quite clear on this; only by a nation-wide amendment push can this be challenged, not by court action. I don't feel the current limit was meant to be discriminatory; back then people didn't live as long and 25 yrs old was pretty fair. I'd also like to think The Framers had college education in mind by setting the bar as high as they did.

[CTLawGuy]

4. why dont you just not vote for someone

who you don't think is qualified? Why bar others from having a chance to vote in a younger person?

[TheWizardOfMudd]

10. Because teenagers are stupid?

Heh heh. ;)

[CTLawGuy]

12. with teenagers,

youd have more of a leg to stand on than legal adults. The Court has always allowed the state more freedom when it comes to restricting children.

[DRoseDARs]

19. Eh?

'xplain please.

[DRoseDARs]

18. Well, not exactly for that reason... ;-)

As I said before, it's about having enough time to be educated, both by college and by experience. Unless the kid in question is one of those mutant freaks who earn their third phD at age 12 I see no reason to believe that at 23 one has matured enough to handle the affairs of a country, certainly not the United States. Yes, there are kids that are mature for their age (Hell, I was one of them), but maturity DOES NOT automatically equal experience. Only time can grant experience. And at 23, one hasn't had enough personal experience with the political process nor with academia to be adequetly prepared for a federal-level position, elected or appointed.

For the record: I'm not some grumpy old fool; I turned 23 this past April. Grumpy? Yes. Fool? Maybe. But not old. ;)

[Senior citizen]

7. I'd prefer a smart young'un

to some of those old morans in office now. Even the ones whose degrees aren't from diploma mills, but from Yale, no less, don't always have basic thinking or language skills. Neither age nor education is any guarantee of competence.

I'd love to see the same SCOTUS that put * in, try to argue this one.


:evilgrin: :kick:

[kiahzero]

8. No

Every word of the Constitution must be given some meaning - we cannot assume that there are meaningless clauses anywhere in the document.

Additionally, the Court is only given the power to interpret the document.

The State is correct in its argument that the Court needs to interpret the Constitution in such a manner as it does not contradict itself.

[Lady President]

11. No, but it's not fair

No, he shouldn't be allowed to run because he doesn't meet the requirements of the Constitution. It can be inferred that because ages were specifically written into the document, there is a reason to follow the requirements. My best guess would be that the drafters felt anyone younger lacked the maturity to hold office. And, not be able to run for federal office doesn't preclude Kenneth from participating in voting.

My argument for allowing him to run would include a couple other ideas:
1. Point out that the Constitution has been expanded to give other groups the right to actively participate in government. (i.e. African-Americans and women) This would be tough because young people are not a protected class.
2. The U.S. Constitution is out of step with other laws. (i.e. Fla. allows state representatives to run at 21) Also a loser because the states are allowed to expand upon the rights in the US Constitution.
3. The fact that Kenneth can join the service, drink alcohol, and vote indicates that he is an adult with the necessary maturity to run for federal office. The argument that if you're old enough to serve in the military, then you're old enough to drink has failed in the past, and it would here too.

Frankly, there's not a good argument for preventing him from running, but he wouldn't be allowed. Thanks for the fun question. :)

[ThoughtCriminal]

13. 14th Amendment does not apply here

Since everyone who turns age 25 is eligible, there is no class discrimination.

If equal protection meant laws could not establish age requirements, would laws preventing an 8-year old from voting, drinking, getting drafted or driving be constitutional?

Nope, don't buy it.

[patriotvoice]

14. No, not allowed. The argument fails the Suspect Classification test.

On first blush, the equal protection clause does not seem to provide much difficulty of interpretation. The precise meaning, however, must be only partially evaluated within the context of the Constitution as a whole corpus; the primary analysis comes from the history of judicial interpretation and reinterpretation.

The amendment originally applied solely to race, but as the scope of equality has significantly broadened as mores have given way, the Court has invoked a number of standards for equal protection review.

The first, and only, standard against which we'll need to compare is the Suspect Classification test. This test passes if a category or class of people require special protection by the judicial branch. The Supreme Court gives special protection when a policy treats people differently owing solely and precisely to their "race," "ethnicity," or "gender." These are the only two categories recognized as 'suspect' by the Supreme Court.


While the court will not consider age discrimination within the framework of the equal protection clause, it does exercise rational scrutiny. Rational scrutiny allows the court to compare the operational objective with the perfunctory disallowance. In this case, the objective (obtaining a position within the Congress) would be viewed as such a crucial capacity that the age requirement is a highly rational requirement in light of the necessary wisdom needed to fully exercise that position.

Incidentally, age, disability, and sexual orientation are not suspect classifications; they are all subject to rational scrutiny.

On edit:
Word choice

[CTLawGuy]

15. the court gives

fundamental rights strict scrutiny automatically, no matter what the classification made. How can you say the right to run for office is not fundamental? How can we have a democracy if the govt can ban people from running for office at will?

[patriotvoice]

17. I didn't say "running for office isn't a fundamental right."

I'm saying that the Court only gives more detailed scrutiny to equal protection arguments if the classification is suspect. Age is not a suspect classification. Hence, the court would not consider this argument under the equal protection clause.

This test is in place because there are an infinite number of infinite classifications (yes, Aleph 1 for us mathematically minded people) into which we could lump people. This test allows the Court to focus on crucial arguments that really are necessary under the equal protection clause.

As I said, the scope of "equality" has expanded considerably as mores have loosened. Eg, the Constitution only includes race as a suspect classification. Today we have race, ethnicity (which includes religion), and gender.

We are currently debating whether sexual orientation is a suspect classification, and I believe it to be. I'd rather get this one out of the way first. Besides, by the time the case is heard, our plaintiff will have met the age requirement.

:toast:

On edit:
Formatting

[TheWizardOfMudd]

20. Dudes

This issue needs to be phrased in narrow terms of Federal powers vs. individual rights. Based on the plain language, we don't even get to the questions of classess, strict scrutiny, discrimination, or anyting like that.

The express terms of the Constitution prohibit running for that office under the age of 24. The age qualification for people running for that office is a power that the people granted to the Federal government. No rights concerning the age qualification were reserved for the states or retained by the people. It is inherent in the agreement.

You are making it WAY too complicated and taking it to places outside the scope of our Constitutional framework.

[patriotvoice]

24. Express terms may be rendered invalid by other express terms.

The Constitution is, certainly, an agreement and as such it must be interpreted as a contract: "who is granted power by whom." Contracts are always interpreted as a whole corpus, as I said in my original post: " must be ... evaluated within the context of the Constitution as a whole corpus."

Express terms in the Constitution have in the past been rendered invalid by amendments (specifically "race" and the EPC), and just because an express term is in the Constitution does not mean it's a priori above scrutiny.

In fact, the EPC precisely requires strict scrutiny even of the Constitution itself.

Nonetheless, the age requirement fails the suspect classification test, so it wouldn't go further than that.

[Guaranteed]

22. So then there could also be an upper age limit- even in voting.

Clearly those above a certain age begin to show limited mental capacity and decision making abilities, just as those below the age of 18.

I don't want some segregation-era demented old fogey helping to make the decision of who represents us on a national level, let alone BEING the representative themselves.

[patriotvoice]

23. Yes, there could be.

In the days the Constitution was written, people usually died before they reached the age of blathering senility. Strom Thurmond, for example, should have been capped (by age, not a bullet) a long time before he actually resigned.

[Senior citizen]

21. So a developmentally disabled person,

who is above the required age, is deemed competent to run for office by SCOTUS, while a genius below the required age is not?

I say just file it (they won't hear it unless you're a friend of Scalia anyway), and let the same SCOTUS that put the chimp in office, try to argue that they have a REASON for the age limit. Seeing what they've given us, their REASON can't be intelligence, experience, or competence.

As for precedent, they put * in with a decision that neither followed nor set precedent.

If SCOTUS wasn't so corrupt, the case would have a good chance. But since the only REAL qualification they require for an election official is that the winner be a puke, there's no chance at all.