[2] Joining with other plaintiffs who had also been denied registration for similar reasons, Ramirez brought a class-action lawsuit against Jerry Brown, who at the time was California's Secretary of State, challenging a state constitutional provision that permanently disenfranchised anyone convicted of an "infamous crime", unless the right to vote was restored by court order or executive pardon.

The Court relied on Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which calls for reducing representation in the U.S. House of Representatives for any state that denies the right to vote to its voters (a provision designed to prevent the Southern states from disenfranchising black citizens after the Civil War).

But Section 2 makes an exception for denying voting rights to citizens because of "participation in rebellion, or other crimes.

"[6] The Court said that this distinguishes felony disenfranchisement from other forms of voting restrictions, which must be narrowly tailored to serve compelling state interests in order to be constitutional.

[7] The Court also reviewed the legislative history of Section 2, and relied as well on the fact that when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in 1868, over half of the U.S. states allowed denying the right to vote to "persons convicted of felonies or infamous crimes.