The Adolescent Citizen

California's new draft of young dependent progressives

The Adolescent Citizen

California State Senator Henry Stern introduced Senate Constitutional Amendment 2 allowing 17-year-olds to vote in California elections based on the precedents of 17-year-olds being able to join the military (with parental permission), the driving age of 16, youth's expanding demographics, and their supposed greater interest in political action.  This is part and parcel of a progressivists’ movement to create the Adolescent Citizen. 

In the Constitution, voting was initially limited to "responsible" citizens such as the Framers, namely adult male property owners.  Eventually the vote was wisely extended to all adult males, then those adult males who had been property themselves, and belatedly to adult women.  All had achieved the condition of born or naturalized citizenship.  The central thesis of suffrage for all these groups wa…