Dems Trying to Gain More Votes by Lowering Voting Age…Again
On a personal note, I think that there needs to be different set of guidelines for voting, but I won’t get into my opinions on that today. A group of House Democrats have recently taken the initiative to introduce legislation that would lower the voting age in the United States from 18 to 16 years old.
The joint resolution, which was spearheaded by New York Rep. Grace Meng, states that citizens aged sixteen and above should not be denied or abridged the right to vote, a proposal that has already secured 12 cosponsors. This would contrast with the current 26th Amendment, which only permits citizens who are 18 years old and up to cast their ballots.
In a similar vein, Washington D.C.’s suburbs are considering lowering the voting age to 16 regardless of whether they are citizens or not. One person who has voiced her support for this idea is former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In an interview with The Daily Caller back in 2019, Pelosi said she “personally” is in favor of reducing the minimum voting age “to capture kids when they’re in high school when they’re interested in all of this when they’re learning about government to be able to vote.”
To me, that’s exactly why they shouldn’t vote…because they are still learning and don’t know jack about the way the world of politics works. I was 16 once and I was a smart kid…but I definitely didn’t need to be voting.
This echoes sentiments expressed by Democratic Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley whose ‘For The People Act’ amendment was turned down by a 126-305 vote last year; the amendment proposed lowering the federal voting age from 18 to 16, which has been met with approval from numerous other Democrats such as Earl Blumenauer, Suzanne Bonamici, Jamaal Bowman, Sean Casten, Adriano Espaillat, Barbara Lee, Seth Moulton, Jan Schakowsky, Rashida Tlaib, Lori Trahan and Alexandria-Ocasio-Cortez.
However, it remains to be seen whether these efforts will eventually bear fruit as there has yet to be any tangible progress towards getting this legislation passed into law even though it could potentially make a major difference in how US politics looks like on a national level given that younger generations already show more engagement with political issues than ever before.