Bowen

Little-known section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution allows states, without offending equal protection, to disenfranchise citizens “for participation in rebellion or other crime.” Petitioners here seek a writ of mandate, claiming that the disenfranchisement allowed by the section is limited to felonies at common law. We conclude that there is no historical evidence supporting the claim. And the United States Supreme Court in interpreting the Constitution has never read the word “crime” as petitioners contend. We thus deny the writ.

BACKGROUND

There are seven petitioners in all (collectively, Petitioners), the first two of which are entities; Legal Services for Prisoners with Children and The Center for Children of Incarcerated Parents. The former is a nonprofit organization that promotes “the interests of parents who are incarcerated, on parole, or at risk of incarceration, and their children”; the latter is a private nonprofit corporation that “provides services, conducts research, and produces publications about and for children of criminal offenders and their families.”

The other five Petitioners are individuals, three of whom are on…