Adam Patinkin '07 argues in his guest op-ed on May 18 ("Demanding Our Right to Vote") that the recent measures enacted by the New Hampshire state legislature by HB 1566 are several things: first, that campus bipartisanship which opposes the issue is inherently meaningful; second, that students as members of the community deserve a say in the laws which govern that community and are being stripped of their right to vote; and third, that the law itself is unconstitutional per Symm v. United States. He makes other points, of course, but I will limit this cursory examination only to those.
To start, while I am no constitutional scholar, his last point appears to be correct. Symm does, in fact, from my minimal reading of this and other relevant court decisions, say that HB 1566 is unconstitutional. The prudence of a state legislature passing laws it knows to be illegal per U.S. Supreme Court decisions notwithstanding, it seems unlikely that the law will be upheld in a court of law. Even the dissenting late Chief Justice William Rehnquist appears to concede that the students' right to vote was being violated.
But this does not mean it's right. There are plenty of things that are constitutional and are bad -- while it no longer carries weight, the Three-Fifths Clause comes to mind -- and plenty of unconstitutional things that are good. I am not debating the expedience of a legislature passing unconstitutional laws, nor am I suggesting here that our Constitution or our interpretation of it be changed; I simply think there is an alternate interpretation which deserves much more credence than it is given by Patinkin.
Patinkin makes very salient arguments that students, as active members of the community, and taxpayers to boot, deserve a say in the state legislature. I think the necessary continuation of this line of logic occurs where he ends his article, by referencing our revolutionary inheritance, "taxation without representation." The argument seems perfectly sensible. Students do pay taxes to the state of New Hampshire, so why do their tax dollars not get them a vote whereas everyone else's taxes do? The problem is that the colonial cry of "no taxation without representation" was borne out of the fact that the colonists were stuck in their situation. They had nowhere else to live and vote. If both every state in the Union and the federal government denied students at colleges in different states the right to vote, then I think this would be a fantastic argument. And yet we know this is not the case.
Students make a conscious choice to leave their home state. Their vote still counts as much as anyone else's back home. Part of the calculus for where one is going to school could include whether you want your votes to be for someone local to the place you inhabit for four years of your life or for someone across the country (and it is not the fault of the legislature if this did not enter a matriculating student's reasoning). This is not an example of a George III and an angry Parliament enacting tyrannical laws; this is the example of a voting preference, germane to a past decision of a place to live and go to school, being restricted by a state legislature.
The reasoning behind the state wanting to end this slightly-carpetbagger-esque practice shines some light on the first point of Patinkin's that I referenced. New Hampshire holds a place as the vetting ground for presidential candidates. The state would like that honor to be left to true residents of the state, and not non-residents who happen to be going to school here. Whether or not it is true that Dartmouth students have less of a vested interest in the state than other residents is of no consequence here; I'm simply saying that it seems logical in our mixed federal republic that each individual unit would want to preserve its privileges of voting (the right to vote, as I pointed out before, is not at issue here like Patinkin would like us to think it is: students' right to vote still exists in their home state) to its more sessile residents.
Patinkin claims that campus bipartisanship, symbolized by his receiving feedback on or contributions to his article from Rahul Sangwan '07, lends credence to the opposition to the law. I would argue the exact opposite. Bipartisanship can be one of two things: (a) both sides admitting there is a clear "right" choice, or (b) both corrupt political machines agreeing it serves their collective best interests to support something together.
The existence of the New Hampshire state primary and swing state status makes it highly suspect that the presidents of both the Democrat and Republican organizations on campus would support this measure that is so politically expedient to their respective parties.
Patinkin, ultimately, could be right about the House Bill. He seems to have the Supreme Court on his side, anyway -- but his heavy-handed, rhetorical, outright rejection of a nuanced situation piqued in both federal and state politicking does not give ample consideration to a contrary view which is not at all as dictatorial as he claims.
