The 14th Amendment says states that infringe the vote must lose representation in Congress. It’s time to make this happen. //

The U.S. Constitution is famously short—a mere 7,591 words, including its 27 amendments. That makes it all the more remarkable that 110 of those words have been, in effect, lost to the ages.

These forgotten words form Section 2 of the 14th Amendment, which was designed to guard against the infringement of voting rights. The lost provision is simple: States that deny their citizens the right to vote will have reduced representation in the House of Representatives. //

From widespread closure of polling locations and expanding imposition of voter identification laws to escalating purges of voter rolls, assaults on the right to vote nationwide illustrate that we need these lost words back, urgently. //

clause might have been this one: The clause failed to specify how Congress was to obtain the data that could serve as a first step in pursuing a punitive reduction in representation.

This proved a serious obstacle when, in the 1870s, Congress made its one serious push to impose the penalty of diminished representation. //

A select committee of the House of Representatives focused on administering the country’s ninth census made a list of state laws that the committee regarded as infringing on voting. Then the committee decided to ask census respondents nationwide whether their right to vote had been denied or abridged on constitutionally impermissible grounds. So, the committee reported out a bill that would have the secretary of the Interior—then responsible for administering the census—determine where and how much voting infringement was occurring and, in turn, proportionally reduce any offending state’s representation in the House.

This proposal elicited an objection that the Interior secretary was being made the final arbiter of a responsibility entrusted by the reduction clause to Congress itself.