D.C. delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) with Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), left, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Washington, DC, Mayor Adrian Fenty following a Senate vote today for the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
by Mark Silva
The great, and disenfranchised, capital of the United States of America is looking at a long-sought dream today: The right to vote.
For a member of Congress, that is.
They just cannot have tough control - everything, in Washington, is a question of compromise.
The District of Columbia, long excluded from a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives, inched closer today, with a vote of the Senate to give Washingtonians voting rights. President Barack Obama has said he would sign such a bill - though the issue is inevitably bound for the Supreme Court if Congress approves this.
Residents of the federal district have been fighting for voting rights since 1801, when Congress took control of the newly created capital.
It wasn't until 1964 that D.C. residents were able to vote in presidential elections, and it took nearly another decade for Congress to pass the Home Rule Act, permitting the direct election of a mayor and other city officials.
The district has a longtime delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, but she can only vote in House committees, not on the floor.
The bill, similar to one that the Senate killed two years ago, offers the 600,000 residents of the district a representative vote in the House starting in 2011. To offset the likely election of a Democrat in the district, the bill also adds a fourth seat for Republican-leaning Utah, which narrowly missed out on an extra seat in the House after the 2000 Census and reapportionment of districts.
"In many parts of D.C., you can look down the street and see the Capitol dome, and yet so many of these streets couldn't be more disconnected from our government," Obama said during a 2007 campaign appearance in the district.
The Senate bill cleared today overwhelmingly with a disputed amendment to repeal most of the city's strict gun-control laws -- different from a bill that the House will consider next week. The differences between the two must be resolved.
""There can't be no turning back now," said Norton, the city's nonvoting member of Congress who will have the right to vote if she wins re-election in 2010.
Moment for voting rights has been building for years. In 2000, the city started a street-level campaign with its vehicle license plates:
"Taxation Without Representation."
Yet experts question the constitutionality of the bid for voting rights in the capital of American democracy. George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley sympathizes with the plight of D.C. residents, but callss the measure "flagrantly unconstitutional" and ultimately doomed.
""What these (lawmakers) are doing is extremely dangerous and destabilizing for our system of government," Turley says, suggesting the bill opens the door for Congress to give the vote to Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories as well.
And the problem with that?
Comments
No!
Give the land back to the states that gave up the land to form DC; and let the "new" residents partake in voting in those "re-assembled" states.
Posted by: Felix | February 26, 2009 6:44 PM
Yet another part of the US Constitution trashed by the Democrats.
Posted by: Inconvenient Truths | February 26, 2009 7:07 PM
This is a wash. DC gets their vote to represent America with and another vote also goes to Utah, that represents the right-wing lunatic fringers who are loyal to the Repuglicans.
Posted by: Jack Handy | February 26, 2009 7:11 PM
Don't give Utah more delegates until they fix their shameful redistricting practices and clean up their corrupt lobbying laws.
Posted by: dt☢ | February 26, 2009 7:13 PM
Conservatism is not exclusive of Republicans in US. For example, the US citizens in PR are very conservatives in their lifestyles. They want less government, less taxes, are against abortion and value the family!
Posted by: Carlos | February 26, 2009 7:45 PM
Yet another part of the US Constitution trashed by the Democrats.
Posted by: Inconvenient Truths | February 26, 2009 7:07 PM
...
Spare us the crying, you whiny baby.
This is about voter representation, something Repugs like you don't care about unless it can be gerrymandered to favor wingnuts like you. And it was your heroes (BushCo Republicans) who spent the last eight years shredding the constitution, including torturing and commiting war crimes, and all the while you were cheerleading for them.
Posted by: Teresa | February 26, 2009 8:05 PM
Now all we need to do is annex Canada and Mexico and make Puerto Rico a state.
Posted by: TIM | February 26, 2009 9:32 PM
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Posted by: Teresa | February 26, 2009 8:05 PM
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No, Teresa,
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This is not about voter representation. This is about preserving, protecting, and defending the Constitution of the United States. You know, those things that House Representatives, Senators and even Presidents swear to do?
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The Constitution provides: “The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, . . .” (U.S. Const. Art. I, § 2.) Did you see the phrase, “People of the several States?” If those who wrote and ratified the Constitution intended to permit representation in the House for People living in something other than a State, it would have said so. The fact that it employs “States” means that representation from a territory or some political subdivision less than a State is not permissible. Otherwise, the phrase “People of the several States” offers no more than a meaningless distinction. Any interpretation that renders words, phrases or entire sentences of the Constitution meaningless surplusage is not permitted. Thus, the bill that would provide for representation for D.C. citizens in the House of Representatives, if passed into law, would be unconstitutional.
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If voter representation is what people want, then they have to resort to the amendment process specified in Article V of the Constitution. That takes a two-thirds vote by both the House and Senate and ratification by legislatures of three-quarters of the states. The fact that you suggest that a mere act of Congress could suffice to change the basic, organic law of the United States, where the contrary is provided in the Constitution itself, just goes to show how little pseudo-liberals like you care for the limitations the Constitution imposes on the government. But, we already knew that, didn’t we?
Posted by: John W. | February 27, 2009 12:19 AM
After the Rahm census Utah will be lucky to have one House representative. Voting rights for D.C. were attempted twice via a constitutional amendment and failed so let us now attempt a run around the Constitution. Another idiotic waste of taxpayer's money by the goofus Dems. Does anyone think that if D.C. was a conservative leaning voting block that this would be an issue? I like to look at D.C. as a shinning example of federal management along with a voter intelligence level close to that of Il.
Posted by: Bubba Porter | February 27, 2009 5:29 AM
"Does anyone think that if D.C. was a conservative leaning voting block that this would be an issue?" Posted by: Bubba Porter
No doubt, Bubba, if it were Bush and Rove would have pushed through statehood with you leading the cheers.
Posted by: Flo | February 27, 2009 9:17 AM
residents of puerto rico DO NOT PAY FEDERAL TAXES!
yet dc residents DO!
how can ANYONE defend TAXING residents without giving them a vote?
this is not rocket science here.
do we need to throw another boston tea party or what?
professor turley, take your head out of your phoney baloney constitution rhetoric and explain to residents how do you defend TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION?!
Posted by: DC GIRL | February 27, 2009 12:13 PM
Why would this be blatantly unconstitutional? As The Blackbook Legal Blog points out (http://www.blackbooklegal.com) there's some precednet on the side of the DC rights movement
Posted by: Sam | February 27, 2009 1:10 PM
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Posted by: Sam | February 27, 2009 1:10 PM
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Sam,
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You raise a fair question. The answer is that whoever wrote entry on the Blackbook Legal Blog on the issue didn’t understand the case he or she cited for the proposition that the D.C. House representation bill isn’t unconstitutional. The case cited, i.e., National Mut. Ins. Co. v. Tidewater Transfer Co., Inc., 337 U.S. 582 (1949), did not hold that the District of Columbia was a State or that Congress could confer jurisdiction on the courts in D.C. on the basis of diversity of citizenship “between citizens of different States” under Article III of the Constitution. To the contrary, the United States Supreme Court reaffirmed its earlier (even ancient) ruling that Washington D.C. is not a “State” for purposes of conferring diversity jurisdiction on that basis. (See National Mutual Ins. Co., 337 U. S. at 586-588; and see Hepburn & Dundas v. Ellzey, 6 U.S. (2 Cranch) 445, 452-453 (1805), for the earlier case.)
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Instead, in National Mutual Ins. Co., etc., the Supreme Court held that Congress could empower courts sitting in D.C. to hear diversity cases between citizens of States and citizens of D.C. under its Art. I powers to “to exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases
whatsoever, over such District” and its power “to make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution” such powers. (See U.S. Const., Art. I, § 8, clauses 17 & 18.) The Court observed “that the exclusive responsibility of Congress for the welfare of the District includes both power and duty to provide its inhabitants and citizens with courts adequate to adjudge not only controversies among themselves, but also their claims against, as well as suits brought by, citizens of the various states.” (See National Mutual Ins. Co., 337 U. S. at 59.) Thus, contrary to the thinking of the person on the Blackbook Legal Blog, case of National Mut. Ins. Co., etc. is no authority for the proposition that Washington D.C. is either a State or that Congress has the power to treat it as one for all purposes under the Constitution.
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The discussion regarding diversity jurisdiction has nothing to do with the basic problem of treating Washington D.C. as a “State” for purposes of Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution. As mentioned, that provision provides: “The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States . . .” (U.S. Const. Art. I, § 2.) With regard to this constitutional provision, the U.S. Supreme Court made it clear that “the word ‘State’ is used in the Constitution as designating a member of the union, and excludes from the term the signification attached to it by writers on the law of nations.” (Hepburn & Dundas, 6 U. S. at 452-453.) It is for this explicit reason that the Court held that D.C. isn’t a State. (Ibid.) Therefore, providing representation for other than the “People of the several States,” would be unconstitutional without an amendment to the Constitution.
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The text, with page numbering, of all the cases cited here can be found at http://supreme.justia.com/index.html with a case name search.
Posted by: John W. | February 27, 2009 3:38 PM
John,
I'm not a lawyer, so I might be missing something but I think the BlackBook legal commenter was actually saying that the argument in favor related to the Article I, Section 8 power rather than the overruling of a decision re: the definition of "state."
But thanks for clarifying.
Posted by: Sam | February 28, 2009 3:17 PM