The possibilty of seventeen-year olds voting

* Representative Lou Lang's proposed Illinois Constitutional Amendment, HJRCA0029, was discussed at the Ethics and Campaign Reform Committee today. There was a considerable amount of press there, seeing as how this has ground-breaking potential if it hits the House floor for a vote. The proposal did in fact pass 5 to 3.

* The details of the proposal are still fuzzy, but if in fact enacted Illinois will be the first state in the Union to allow 17 year olds the right to vote in a general election. Rep. Lang said that he believes the issue to be especially relevant with arrival of the information age:

"Some seventeen-year olds are more knowledgeable about politics than many sixty-year olds who only vote on the last sound-byte that they hear."

* There are currently eleven states that allow seventeen-year olds to vote in the primary election if they will be eligible by the general election, but none that allow them to vote in the general if they are not eighteen.

Representative McCarthy got a round of laughter from the room when he added:

"Representative Lang, I know people from your generation had to wait until they were twenty-one."

* The discussion mostly hinged around the difficulty of having a hypothetical separate ballot for seventeen-year olds, since they would not be allowed to vote for federal candidates unless the U.S. Constitution was also amended. Some representatives feared the added costs of creating such a system, or the bureaucratic nightmares that could follow.

It is hard to speculate as to the chances of Rep. Lang's bill passing in the future, especially with so many unanswered questions surrounding the idea. But there is a strong likelihood that even if the bill does not pass Illinois could become the 12th state to allow seventeen-year olds who aren't eighteen by the primary but will be in the general, the right to vote. Representative McCarthy hinted as to the likelihood of support for a compromise like this, even though he voted "no" because of his constituency's objections. Only time will tell, but with the recent surge of young participation in the Illinois primary, the iron definitely seems hot to strike.