Opinion ID: 108221
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: Residency

Text: For reasons already stated, neither the power to regulate voting qualifications in presidential elections, asserted by my Brother BLACK, nor the power to declare the meaning of § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment, relied on by my Brother DOUGLAS, can support § 202 of the Act. It would also be frivolous to contend that requiring States to allow new arrivals to vote in presidential elections is an appropriate means of preventing local discrimination against them in other respects, or of forestalling violations of the Fifteenth Amendment. The remaining grounds relied on are the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Art. IV, § 2, [91] and the right to travel across state lines. While the right of qualified electors to cast their ballots and to have their votes counted was held to be a privilege of citizenship in Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651 (1884), and United States v. Classic, 313 U. S. 299 (1941), these decisions were careful to observe that it remained with the States to determine the class of qualified voters. It was federal law, acting on this state-defined class, which turned the right to vote into a privilege of national citizenship. As the Court has consistently held, the Privileges and Immunities Clauses do not react on the mere status of citizenship to enfranchise any citizen whom an otherwise valid state law does not allow to vote. Minor v. Happersett, 21 Wall. 162, 170-175 (1875); Pope v. Williams, 193 U. S. 621, 632 (1904); Breedlove v. Suttles, 302 U. S. 277, 283 (1937); cf. Snowden v. Hughes, 321 U. S. 1, 6-7 (1944). Minors, felons, insane persons, and persons who have not satisfied residency requirements are among those citizens who are not allowed to vote in most States. [92] The Privileges and Immunities Clause of Art. IV of the Constitution is a direct descendent of Art. IV of the Articles of Confederation: The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union, the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States . . . . It is inconceivable that these words when used in the Articles could have been understood to abolish state durational residency requirements. [93] There is not a vestige of evidence that any further extent was envisioned for them when they were carried over into the Constitution. And, as I have shown, when they were substantially repeated in § 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment it was affirmatively understood that they did not include the right to vote. The Privileges and Immunities Clause is therefore unavailing to sustain any portion of § 202. The right to travel across state lines, see United States v. Guest, 383 U. S. 745, 757-758 (1966), and Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S. 618, 630 (1969), is likewise insufficient to require Idaho to conform its laws to the requirements of § 202. MR. JUSTICE STEWART justifies § 202 solely on the power under § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment to enforce the Privileges and Immunities Clause of § 1 which he deems the basis for the right to travel. Post, at 285-287. I find it impossible to square the position that § 5 authorizes Congress to abolish state voting qualifications based on residency with the position that it does not authorize Congress to abolish such qualifications based on race. Since the historical record compels me to accept the latter position, I must reject the former. MR. JUSTICE BRENNAN, MR. JUSTICE WHITE, and MR. JUSTICE MARSHALL do not anchor the right of interstate travel to any specific constitutional provision. Post, at 237-238. Past decisions to which they refer have relied on the two Privileges and Immunities Clauses, just discussed, the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, and the Commerce Clause. See Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U. S., at 630 n. 8; id., at 663-671 (dissenting opinion). The Fifth Amendment is wholly inapplicable to state laws; and surely the Commerce Clause cannot be seriously relied on to sustain the Act here challenged. With no specific clause of the Constitution empowering Congress to enact § 202, I fail to see how that nebulous judicial construct, the right to travel, can do so.