Speech #870172982

However. I see on the floor the distinguished junior Senator from Maine . His State has a literacy test. It provides. in substance. that. unless prevented by physical disability. or unless a person had the right to vote on January 4. 1893. the applicant for registration must be able to read the constitution of the State in English and to write his name. Yet the bill to which the Senator has referred. if enacted into law. would provide that the State of Maine no longer could have that kind of literacy test. but that anyone who has completed the sixth grade in Puerto Rico would have an absolute right to register and vote in the State of Maine. notwithstanding the literacy test prescribed by the State of Maine. and even though the person could not speak or read or write a word of English. That is just an illustration. as the Senator has pointed out. of how the bill transgresses the Constitution of the United States. which clearly vests in the State legislatures the power to prescribe the qualifications of the electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislature and which provides that only those persons possessing those qualifications are eligible to vote for Senators and Representatives.