Latest on: House Vote
Viet Dinh and Adam Charnes have also written on this subject, in favor of a statutorily granted House vote to the District of Columbia.
The DC Vote proposal would not give the District of Columbia any representation in the Senate, but it would affect the Electoral College.
-All we have on the economic stimulous bill is the failed vote to pass it.
The district elects one Congressional Delegate who sits in the House of Representatives and votes in committee, but is barred from voting in the full House.
The District of Columbia has never had full voting representation in Congress.
Some members of Congress are once again trying to violate Washington, DC residents’ right to self-governance.
Jonathan Turley, George Washington University law professor, believes the D.C. portion of the bill is “flagrantly unconstitutional” because the Constitution gives representation to “the people of the several states.”
We’ll have more info here as soon as it’s posted on the government website THOMAS, maybe tomorrow.
If that’s not fast enough, tell your representative that the Library of Congress needs the funding and a mandate to enter the 21st century for legislative information.
There is widespread agreement that similar results could be achieved constitutionally by granting full statehood to Washington D.C., or retroceding territory of Washington D.C. back to the State of Maryland, or adopting a constitutional amendment granting Washington D.C. a vote in the House of Representatives.
That proposal for a statute to enhance District of Columbia voting rights is called the “DC Vote” proposal.
Although in theory it might be more congenial to the spirit of our institutions to admit a representative from the district, it may be doubted whether, in fact, its interests would be rendered thereby the more secure; and certainly the constitution does not consider their want of a representative in Congress as exempting it from equal taxation.
Under the DC Vote proposal, the voting power of the district’s citizens in presidential elections would remain at three electoral votes, pursuant to the 23rd Amendment.
The Congress shall have Power….To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States….
Efforts are underway to give D.C. residents one full representative in the House, as if the district were a state.
The “DC Vote” solution would give D.C. citizens a vote in Congress by a simple statute like the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2007, but the constitutionality of this solution is disputed.
The DC Vote proposal, by awarding Utah another House seat, would give that state another electoral vote, at least temporarily.
The difference between requiring a continent, with an immense population, to submit to be taxed by a government having no common interest with it, separated from it by a vast ocean, restrained by no principle of apportionment, and associated with it by no common feelings; and permitting the representatives of the American people, under the restrictions of our constitution, to tax a part of the society…which has voluntarily relinquished the right of representation, and has adopted the whole body of Congress for its legitimate government, as is the case with the district, is too obvious not to present itself to the minds of all.
Supporters of the DC Vote solution also rely on Tidewater for the idea that the language of Article III allows Congress to extend the judicial power farther than what is spelled out in Article III, and therefore they say that the language of Article I should likewise allow Congress to supplement the composition of the House beyond what is spelled out in Article I. However, opponents of the DC Vote solution argue that six of nine justices in the Tidewater case rejected the view that the language of Article III can be supplemented in that way; also, the language of Article I is different from the language in Article III.
The “District of Columbia Fair and Equal House Voting Rights Act of 2006″ was a bill to give the District of Columbia voting representation in the United States House of Representatives.
