A Yale law professor is drawing backlash after suggesting that young adult voters could be given additional “proxy votes” to represent children who are too young to vote — while arguing that parents may not be the best people to represent their own children’s political interests.

Samuel Moyn, the Kent Professor of Law and History at Yale University and author of Gerontocracy in America: How the Old Are Hoarding Power and Wealth—and What to Do About It, discussed the proposal during a conversation with New York Times columnist Ross Douthat on his Interesting Times podcast.

Moyn’s broader argument is that America’s aging population has concentrated too much political and economic power among older generations. His proposed remedies range from relatively conventional election reforms to ideas that would fundamentally change how Americans’ votes are weighted.

One of those ideas is giving greater political power to younger Americans.

Moyn said he has previously proposed considering “overweighting” younger voters and giving the youngest eligible voters proxy votes representing children who are not yet old enough to vote.

That’s when Douthat asked the question many parents would probably ask immediately:

Why wouldn’t those votes go to the children’s parents?

Moyn’s answer exposed a much deeper disagreement over the role of parents in American society.

He argued that there is a “divergence of interests” between parents and children and suggested that young people who are not raising families may actually have better insight into children’s interests.

Douthat pushed back forcefully, calling the concept “daft” and rejecting the idea that an unrelated 24-year-old college graduate would somehow understand the interests of his children better than he does.

But Moyn went further.

He argued that parents can confuse the interests of their families with those of their children and raised the idea that society should ensure children do not become, in his words, “hostages of their parents.”

That is where this discussion becomes about far more than election reform.

Who Speaks for a Child?

There is a legitimate public-policy debate to be had about America’s aging population.

Older Americans vote at higher rates. Members of Congress are considerably older than the general population. Wealth, property ownership and political influence have increasingly accumulated among older generations.

Moyn has built much of his argument around those realities.

But acknowledging a generational imbalance does not require accepting the idea that unrelated young adults should receive additional voting power supposedly representing someone else’s children.

The proposal raises an extraordinarily important question:

Who has the primary responsibility and authority to represent the interests of a child?

For generations, American society has generally answered that question with a simple principle: parents.

Parents feed their children.

Parents house them.

Parents educate them.

Parents sit beside them when they’re sick.

Parents are legally and financially responsible for them.

Parents live with the consequences of decisions affecting their children long after an election ends.

The suggestion that an unrelated voter could nevertheless possess superior insight into those children’s interests turns that relationship on its head.

From Parental Rights to Political Representation

The controversy also arrives during a much broader national battle over parental rights.

Americans have spent years debating how much authority parents should exercise over education, medical decisions, curriculum, gender-related policies and other issues involving minors.

Now consider where the proxy-voting principle leads.

A child cannot legally vote.

Yet rather than waiting until that child reaches voting age and can express his or her own political beliefs, Moyn’s proposal would allow another adult to exercise political power in the child’s name.

And critically, that person would not necessarily be responsible for that child at all.

That isn’t giving children a voice.

It is giving another adult an additional voice and calling it the child’s.

The Problem With Unequal Votes

There is another fundamental issue.

American elections are built around the principle that eligible citizens receive one vote.

Moyn’s broader proposals challenge that concept directly.

If government begins deciding that one demographic deserves greater electoral influence because policymakers believe that group has a greater “stake” in the future, the obvious question becomes where that principle ends.

Should a 25-year-old’s vote count more than a 65-year-old’s?

Should parents receive additional votes because they’re raising the next generation?

Should taxpayers receive greater voting power?

Should people with longer statistical life expectancies receive more political influence than those with shorter ones?

Once equal citizenship is replaced with government-calculated political weight, elections become something very different.

A Debate Worth Having

To be clear, Moyn is presenting provocative proposals for addressing what he sees as America’s gerontocracy. This is not a Yale University policy proposal, nor is Congress currently considering giving young adults proxy votes for children based on this discussion.

But ideas matter — particularly when they come from influential institutions and legal scholars.

Pastor Josh Howerton, who shared the exchange on X, viewed Moyn’s comments through the lens of parental authority and issued a stark warning to parents.

The reaction is understandable.

Because beneath the academic discussion about demographics and electoral representation is a much more basic philosophical disagreement.

Are children primarily members of families whose parents are entrusted with their upbringing and welfare?

Or are children independent political interests that society may assign other adults to represent when government decides parents aren’t sufficient?

Moyn’s proposal may be theoretical.

The worldview behind it is very real.

And parents should pay attention.

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