Children's Federalist Issues

Before my Constitutional Law class today state v. federal debates floated past and I never really cared to latch on. One point caught my interest though -- without the judicial review capacities of the Supreme Court over state issues, unrepresented minorities could effectively lose any refuge within the government. That is, because state judges are often elected, all three branches would potentially be more purely democratic and would leave no safe-haven for those (such as children) without a voice in government.

I always thought that democracy is supreme. Democracy is traditionally a word of pride, freedom, justice and patriotism. At its root, though, democracy is majority rule -- inherently unequal and potentially unjust. The powers of the judiciary bring the issues of the minority (a la Brown v. Board) into the lime-light and out of the hands of the voting majority.

Children do not have the right to vote. I'm not positing that they should (there would be a whole host of issues beyond children's rights at stake -- possibly multiple votes for parents with multiple children, etc.), however, this does not mean that the interests of a non-voting group should be excluded from the government.