Last year, I discussed Senator Rand Paul's proposal to enfranchise some ex-felons in some elections, and Senator Ben Cardin's broader proposal.

Both have reintroduced their bills this year: Mr. Paul's is S. 457, and Mr. Cardin's is S. 772. Neither changes a word, except for the years introduced.

That's disappointing at the basic level that my (obviously wise and salient) critiques were never addressed in the new drafts of the bill. That's largely, I suppose, because the drafts aren't "new," but simply recycled from last term--and, probably more significantly, because this little blog is more for sorting out my own thoughts than for rewriting federal legislation.

That said, both bills include a glaring error.

Recently I noted that Representative Jim Sensenbrenner's reintroduction of the Voting Rights Amendment Act contained no "substantive" changes. That said, it did include a procedural change: it amended all references to prior election law provisions to reflect their new home in Title 52.

Mr. Paul's and Mr. Cardin's bills, unfortunately, contain the old Title 42 references when referring to other election law provisions in the federal code.

Kudos to Mr. Sensenbrenner's staff for careful attention given to the reintroduction of his election law bill.