The Court ruled that Congress could set a voting age for federal elections, but not state or local elections. This meant that for state and local elections, states could keep the voting age at 21 if they wanted to. However, they would have to keep two different voting registers (lists of people who had signed up to vote): one for federal elections, which would include people as young as 18, and another for state and local elections, which would only include people over age 20.
After the Supreme Court's decision, both Congress and the states wanted to find a way to lower the minimum voting age throughout the country. Congress decided to propose a Constitutional amendment that would set the minimum voting age at 18 everywhere in the country. This would be different than the change to the Voting Rights Act in a few ways.
First of all, the states did not want to deal with the cost and difficulty of having to keep two different voting registers, so they supported the idea of a Constitutional amendment. Also, when they changed the Voting Rights Act, Congress had made a law about state and local elections without the states having any say. However, for an amendment to be added to the Constitution, two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, and then three-fourths of the state legislatures, have to agree on it. (These rules are set out in Article Five of the Constitution.) An amendment would be something that both Congress "and" the states agreed on. Congress would not be over-using its power and breaking the Constitution by making laws for the states.
Opinion polls said that most Americans wanted the Twenty-sixth Amendment to pass. Younger people were most likely to support the Amendment. However, even in people over age 50, over half of Americans supported the Amendment. Even the "New York Times" changed its official opinion and supported the Amendment.
On March 10, 1971, the United States Senate voted 94–0 in support of proposing an amendment that would lower the minimum voting age to 18 everywhere in the country. On March 23, the United States House of Representatives voted 401–19 for the amendment. Congress sent the amendment to the states.
For the Twenty-sixth Amendment to be added to the Constitution, three-fourths of the state legislatures (38 out of the 50) would have to ratify the Amendment. It took just three months for 38 states to ratify the Amendment. After the Amendment was added to the Constitution, another five states ratified it. Seven states never did.
The states ratified the Amendment in this order:
On July 5, 1971, President Richard Nixon held a ceremony at the White House, where he signed the Twenty-sixth Amendment just to show his support. (The President does not have to sign an amendment in order for it to be added to the Constitution.) During the signing ceremony, he talked about his confidence in the United States' young people:
Tray Walker
Tray Walker (August 5, 1992 – March 18, 2016) was an American football cornerback. He played for the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Texas Southern, and was drafted by the Ravens in the 4th round of the 2015 NFL draft. He was born in Miami, Florida.
Walker died in Miami, Florida when he was dirt biking when his bike was hit by a car. He died the next day on March 18, 2016 from his injuries. He was aged 23.
Lothar Späth
Lothar Späth (16 November 1937 – 18 March 2016) was a German politician of the CDU.
From 30 August 1978 to 13 January 1991, Späth was the 5th Minister President of Baden-Württemberg and chairman of the CDU Baden-Württemberg. He served as the 36th President of the Bundesrat in the 1980s.
Separation process
A separation process is a method used in science to separate two substances, that once formed a mixture. The type of separation process used depend on the mixture's properties and components. Here are examples of separation techniques: distilliation, evaporation, chromatography, filtration, fractional distillation and magnetism. The end product of the separation process is one or more pure compounds .
Les Tanyuk
Leonid (Les) Stepanovych Tanyuk (, August 7, 1938 – March 18, 2016) was a Ukrainian theatre and movie director. He was a dissident and the head of the Club of Creative Youth. After 1991's Ukrainian independence Tanyuk became a multiple re-elected member of the Ukrainian parliament.
Tanyuk died on March 18, 2016 in Kiev, Ukraine at the age of 77.
Jan Němec
Jan Němec (12 July 1936 – 18 March 2016) was a Czech movie director and screenwriter. His important work dates from the 1960s. Movie historian Peter Hames has called him as the "enfant terrible of the Czech New Wave." He was known for directing the 1966 movie "A Report on the Party and the Guests".
Argentine real
The real was the former currency of Argentina. It was in circulation from 1813 to 1881 and was also the country's first currency used. During its period, the "sol" was also used and its value was equal to that of the real. The peso was worth 8 reales and the escudo was worth 16 reales.
2012 Democratic Party presidential primaries
The 2012 Democratic presidential primaries and caucuses was the process by which voters of the Democratic Party chose the candidate for the United States presidential election, 2012. The incumbent president, Barack Obama, won the primaries and caucuses after easily winning 88.87% of the popular vote, and all of the states and territories. No other candidates seriously challenged Obama.
Barack Obama was the only candidate who was on the ballot in all 50 states.
Twenty-seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution
The Twenty-seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution (Amendment XXVII) has to do with the salaries paid to members of the United States Congress.
Congress is made of two "Houses," and the members of each House serve different terms (amounts of time in office). Members of the United States Senate serve six-year terms, and members of the United States House of Representatives serve two years each. The Twenty-seventh Amendment says that no law can change Congresspeople's salaries until a new two-year term for Representatives starts.
As of 2020, the Twenty-seventh amendment is the last amendment that has been added to the Constitution. It took longer for the states to ratify this amendment than any other in history. The 1st United States Congress sent the suggested amendment to the states for their approval on September 25, 1789. It was not until May 7, 1992, that enough states ratified the amendment for it to be added to the Constitution. The ratification process had taken 202 years, 7 months, and 12 days the longest in United States history.
When Congress first proposed the amendment in 1789, this is the text they suggested:
On September 25, 1789, the first United States Congress gave a group of 12 amendments to the states for their approval. Written by James Madison, these were the first 12 Constitutional amendments ever written. One of them was an amendment about salaries for Members of Congress. Madison wanted to protect against Congresspeople being able to give themselves raises whenever they wanted to, while they were in the middle of their terms and the people could not vote them out.
In 1791, the states ratified ten of the 12 suggested amendments. These ten amendments became the Bill of Rights. However, the states did not ratify the other two amendments out of the 12 including the one on limiting pay for Congresspeople.
James Madison first proposed this amendment in the United States House of Representatives on June 8, 1789. On August 24, 1789, the House passed the suggested amendment and sixteen others. The proposals went next to the United States Senate, which made 26 different changes to the House's suggested amendments. After taking out some parts of the House amendments, and combining others, the Senate approved a package of twelve suggested amendments on September 9, 1789.