Only the virtuous?

Submitted by AWL on 3 November, 2020 - 2:00
Amy Coney Barrett

Amy Coney Barrett, the new judge rushed onto the Supreme Court by Trump and the Republicans, is on record in a court judgement as saying that the right to vote belongs only to “virtuous citizens”. She emphasises that she is an “originalist” — laws should be interpreted according to their “original” meaning — and declares: “history does show that felons could be disqualified from exercising certain rights — like the rights to vote and serve on juries — because these rights belonged only to virtuous citizens. See Thomas M. Cooley, A Treatise On The Constitutional Limitations (1st ed. 1868) (explaining that certain classes of people were “almost universally excluded” from the franchise for ‘want of capacity or of moral fitness’)”.

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