Mr. William Rehnquist. an assistant attorney general. testified yesterday for the administration and expressed serious doubt that the Morgan case was really applicable to the voting age. Yet in two different memorandums submitted by the Department of Justice to Senator ERVINS subcommitteethese memorandums are contained in the copies of the hearings. a copy of which is on the desk of each Senatorthe administration is extremely generous in supporting action by statute to abolish State literacy tests and to change State residence requirements. These memos appear on page 662 and 684 of the hearings. I was going to read some passages from these memos. but our time is limited. In one passage there is a reference to the case of South Carolina against Katzenbach. which established the legitimacy of the 1965 acts suspension of literacy tests. Let me just read briefly from the bottom of page 664 of the hearings: Even assuming that the 14th amendment does not itself bar lengthy State residence requirements in presidential elections. it seems clear that Congress may abolish such requirements in the exercise of its power to enforce the 14th amendment. The enforcement section of the amendment. as a "positive grant of legislative power" (Morgan v. Katzenbach. supra. at 651). authorlzes Congress to expand the substantive reach of the amendment. Judicial review of congressional action is limited. The statute will be sustained if the court can "perceive a basis upon which Congress might predicate a judgment" that a State enactment "constitutes an invidious discrimination in violation of the equal protection clause." I think the justification by the Department of Justice in the two memorandums it submitted for changing the law on literacy tests and residence requirements can be equally applied to extension of the franchise to 18yearolds. I think the argument the administration made earlier for its own bill before the Judiciary Committee is powerful support for the Mansfield amendment. I hope my colleagues will have an opportunity to review it.
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literacy tests