House Speaker Nancy Pelosi recently voiced her support for lowing the legal voting age to 16 years old.
During a press conference last week, Pelosi said lowering the voting age to 16 was “really important,” and that it’s a view she has held for a long time.
.@SpeakerPelosi: It’s “really important” to lower the voting age to 16. pic.twitter.com/cnUxSds1T3
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) March 14, 2019
Pelosi said she has always supported lowering the voting age.
“It’s really important to capture kids when they’re in high school, when they’re interested in all of this, when they’re learning about government, to be able to vote,” she said.
“My view is that I would welcome it, but I’ve been in that position for a long time,” Pelosi added.
She doubled down the idea during a press conference in Ferguson, Mo. on Monday.
“We’re obviously collecting thoughts about it. Just because someone has a good idea — any of us — doesn’t mean it’s going to the Floor next,” Pelosi said. “It means you go through the process. You build consensus. You build a crescendo.”
“When they are in high school, we see such a heightened interest in history and civics and climate and gun safety and you name it. And that would be a time for them to be registered to vote,” she added.
Her comments appear at about 23:08 in the video below:
“You have an idea?” Pelosi said. “Let’s see how many people you can convince. Let’s see what the other views are that we can enhance this.”
Pelosi was in Ferguson to rally Congressional support for H.R. 1, the “For The People Act of 2019,” as well as H.R. 4, “The Voting Rights Advancement Act of 2019.”
Democratic Rep. Ayanna Pressley attempted to add an amendment to H.R. 1 to lower the voting age to 16. The amendment was struck down in a 126 to 305 vote, according to The Washington Examiner.
During arguments on the amendment, Republican Rep. Rodney Davis said, “I’m of the opinion that we shouldn’t arbitrarily lower the voting age just because right now, I believe Democrats think they’ll gain more votes.”
“I believe it will institutionalize a Democrat majority here in this House of Representatives,” he added.
A new Rasmussen poll released Tuesday found that only 17 percent of likely voters favored lowing the voting age to 16, while 74 percent opposed such a measure.
House Democrats’ ultimately passed H.R. 1 without the amendment. The bill seeks to overhaul campaign laws and would require the disclosure of names and addresses of many political donors, impose penalties on companies with 20 percent or more foreign ownership, establish a public matching system for political donations, redraw congressional districts and more, according to The Washington Post.
