| Get Jonathan Bernstein's newsletter every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. When I started writing about lowering the voting age 10 years ago, I was toying with a hypothetical. It's no longer purely a pipe dream. The idea moved a baby step forward on Wednesday, with a second attempt to add it to a big democracy bill in the House of Representatives. As was the case two years ago, an amendment to set the voting age at 16 failed, with a final vote of 125-302, almost identical to the 126-305 vote in 2019. The small progress? Despite losing its only Republican vote, the amendment this time won 57% of Democratic votes, an increase from 53% last time. Sure, that's not much of a change. But the issue has come a long way. For one thing, advocates have organized around a specific change: lowering the age to 16 from 18. For another, it's now a part of the Democratic agenda, although to date winning the support of only the more liberal portions of the party. It's plausible to see the 16-year-old vote becoming a mainstream Democratic position. If that happens, the it will have a realistic chance to be passed when the partisan context is right — that is, unified Democratic government with larger majorities in both chambers. Whenever that might be. In the meantime, advocates did post one practical victory in 2020, lowering the voting age for school board elections in Oakland, California, although they fell just short at a second attempt across the Bay for San Francisco municipal elections. The national effort, although far from succeeding, does suggest that statewide efforts in solidly Democratic states might have a chance to win. The Constitution says that citizens who are 18 or older must be allowed to vote, but leaves any further decisions optional. Congress could mandate a lower age; if it remains silent, then the states are free to lower the age for federal, state or local elections. Many states also allow local jurisdictions to set their own lower minimums. Expanding the franchise through the legislative process is always a tricky proposition, because it requires elected officials to listen to advocates who currently have no vote, and therefore (usually) less influence. Even when a political party theoretically supports such laws, it's often difficult for such a measure to become a top priority, and parties usually only have the ability to pass their top priorities. But Democrats have made voting rights one of their top priorities, and it does appear that lowering the voting age is working its way onto the group of policies that make up a broader democracy agenda. Of course, it's far from certain that any of that agenda will make it through Congress any time soon, no matter how urgent supporters believe it is or how many times many Republicans indicate their contempt for and opposition to basic democratic norms and practices. I won't repeat the arguments in favor of lowering the voting age, but I will say one thing I'm quite confident about: Had folks several hundred years ago, at the beginning of mass democracy, set vote-from-birth as their rule, we would all use vote-from-birth now, probably with kids gradually taking over their own vote from their parents by their teens, and everyone would think that was natural and normal and would be aghast if anyone suggested eliminating it. Kids are people, and they have political interests! (I'm not for vote-from-birth, but I do think the arguments for it are reasonable). I think that the biggest obstacle to lowering the voting age has been that it just seems weird to people who haven't thought about it. Choosing 16 as the target has no doubt helped, given that it's harder to think of a two-year adjustment as a big deal. But more than that, each attempt, and every vote that generates some publicity, makes the entire topic seem less of a fringe idea than it was a decade ago. And that's why I've come to believe there's a reasonable chance that it's actually going to happen at some point. 1. M. Taylor Fravel at the Monkey Cage on decreasing tensions between China and India. 2. Dan Drezner is depressed about U.S. politics and how voters react to politicians. 3. Norm Ornstein on earmarks. 4. Dahlia Lithwick on New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and due process. 5. My Bloomberg Opinion colleague Noah Feldman on the Supreme Court and voting rights. 6. Kaleigh Rogers and Geoffrey Skelley on Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene's primary election. 7. And Burgess Everett and Melanie Zanona on House and Senate Republicans. Get Early Returns every morning in your inbox. Click here to subscribe. Also subscribe to Bloomberg All Access and get much, much more. You'll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, the Bloomberg Open and the Bloomberg Close. | 
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