Why slavery is on the ballot in five states this year

Nearly 157 years after the 13th Amendment was ratified to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude, five states will ask voters to decide on measures banning slavery — in the form of prison labor.

Advocates who petitioned to add such questions to the ballots in Alabama , Oregon , Louisiana , Tennessee , and Vermont hope to remove provisions in state constitutions that provide for slavery or involuntary work in the criminal justice system. The practical upshot would be to make prison labor voluntary.

Although the 13th Amendment was ratified in 1865, the exception clause in the Constitution allowed authorities in the 19th century, primarily in the South, to implement laws such as the Black Codes that permitted the incarceration of black people for small crimes and forced them into labor. Such laws were considered as the buildup to Jim Crow laws that became outlawed by the 1964 Civil Rights Act, according to Pew Research Center.

None of the proposals in these five states would create immediate changes inside state prisons. However, they could lead to legal challenges concerning limits on how such institutions can utilize prison labor.