Some parts of the Constitution enact themselves. The first and fifth amendments, for example, which have been much in the news, basically restrict government action . Government doesn’t need a law to make them function. The same is true with the 13th Amendment, which banned slavery, or the 14th, which enshrined birthright citizenship into immutable law and extended the Bill of Rights to the states through the universal application of due process and equal protection.Go ahead and pass the John Lewis Act and For The People. There's no way either one gets past this Supreme Court. I'm not entirely sure the 15th Amendment would.
— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) July 1, 2021
But the 15th Amendment was little more than words on paper until the Voting Rights Act. Which is what makes it so easy for the Roberts Court to shred the VRA: there’s so little precedent interpreting the 15th. There’s extensive case law on the 14th; or the 1st and 5th. But on the 15th? Almost nothing, because there was no enabling legislation on it for almost 100 years, no statutes putting the Constitutional language into effect. Without those statutes the amendment never caused a problem. And when the statute did, that was really easily remedied.
This was a feature, not a bug. It still is. And will be for a very long time. The sins of the fathers, and all that. Voting started out as highly restricted. That feature has never really changed.
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