In reply to my Arizona Capitol Times Commentary of December 12th, Constitutional Center Director Nick Dranias believes HOAs are bona fide consensual relationships and regulating homeowners associations would “stand the Constitution on its head.” (See Goldwater Institute: regulating HOAs “stands Constitution on its head”).
In the late 1950s the Southern states enacted a Poll Tax and instituted certain “tests” in order for citizens to be eligible to register to vote. No federal or state laws were violated, since the states were permitted to determine the methods for registering citizens, so long as it was not based on race (15th Amendment). Of course, the tax was set at a level very few Blacks could afford to pay, and among the test questions were such gems as (LBJ: Master of the Senate, Robert A. Caro, p. x, 2002).
Name all of Alabama’s 67 county judges.
What was the date that Oklahoma was admitted to the Union?
How many bubbles in bar of soap?
While legal, these state laws were intended to keep Blacks from voting, and were plainly an unjust and unfair vehicle to support the will of the local power groups. Today, we can ask about the intentions and use of privately developed HOA restrictive covenants, and the arguments by the legal-academic aristocrats promoting the supremacy of servitude laws over constitutional law:
Can private, contractual governments be used to circumvent Constitutional protections? If so, then what becomes of the Constitution? Can the people opt-out of the Union? President Lincoln didn’t think so, and Americans paid dearly to make that point.
The Goldwater Institute’s continued dialog on HOAs and the Constitution reflects the view of HOAs as independent principalities existing outside the Constitution, and thus establishing a new order for Americans, a New America of HOA-lands.
HOA Constitutional Government 
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