Download This PaperVoting Rights and Reform Act of 2021
34 Pages Posted: 21 Apr 2020 Last revised: 2 Feb 2021
Date Written: April 15, 2020
Abstract
This paper is a working draft summarizing a proposed Voting Rights and Reform Act. The proposal draws upon Congress’s longstanding but vastly underused power under the U.S. Constitution, Article I, section 4, clause 1, to override state laws governing the “Times, Places and Manner” of elections to the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate.
This federal election “TPM override power” provides a powerful tool to correct state legislation and election practices which threaten to undermine American democracy.
This proposal is part of a broader suite of legislative and constitutional proposals being developed and set forth by the author as a suggested agenda for Congress and the President in 2021. The hope is that even with a closely divided Senate, bipartisan support may be found for these proposals.
Anyone, regardless of political affiliation or predilection, should find many aspects of these proposals interesting and potentially attractive, as they offer a way forward to safeguard voting rights for all, to reform the Electoral College to more closely reflect the popular vote (while still preserving the traditional constitutional structure of the Electoral College in deference to the many Americans who adamantly refuse to consider its abolition), and to safeguard the independence and nonpartisan integrity of the U.S. Supreme Court and the Attorney of the United States.
To see the author’s proposed “Bipartisan Constitutional Reform Amendments" addressing many of the latter issues, see the paper posted here on SSRN as cited in the downloadable PDF file.
Keywords: voting rights, federal elections, Congressional powers, Time Place and Manner Clause, gerrymandering, absentee voting, voting by mail, mail-in ballots, run-off elections, election law, polling places, early voting, voter registration
JEL Classification: K19, K39
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
