Chairman Linda W. Cropp, Councilmember Carol
Schwartz, Councilmember Harold Brazil, Councilmember Hilda H.M. Mason, Councilmember David
A. Catania, Councilmember Frank Smith, Jr., Councilmember Jack Evans, Councilmember
Kathleen Patterson, Councilmember Charlene Drew Jarvis, Councilmember Harry Thomas, Sr.,
Councilmember Sharon Ambrose, Councilmember Kevn P. Chavous, Councilmember Sandy Allen
A
PROPOSED RESOLUTION IN THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, That this resolution may be cited
as the "Support for Litigation Challenging Constitutionality of the Denial of
Congressional Voting Representation for District Residents Sense of the Council Resolution
of 1998".
Sec. 2. Findings.
(a) The District of Columbia is the only national capital amongst the world’s
representative democracies whose residents are denied voting representation in the
national legislature.
(b) Although the Constitution of the United States (Article I, section 8, clause 17)
authorizes the establishment of a national capital district over which "Congress
shall have the power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever",
nothing in its terms or in the rationale offered for this provision suggests that the
right to voting representation in the Congress should be withheld from those citizens who
happen to reside within the boundaries of the national capital.
(c) The core principle of a democracy – that the government derives its powers
from the consent of the governed – is violated when citizens do not have voting
representation in the bodies that make their laws.
(d) Moreover, the fundamental Constitutional rights of one person-one vote and equal
protection under the law are each violated by the District’s lack of voting representation
in the House and the lack of any representation in the Senate.
(e) The denial of Congressional voting representation for District residents is even
more heinous when coupled with the fact that Congress chooses to exercise ultimate
decision-making over all local legislative and budgetary matters affecting District
residents. Thus, as Professor of Law Jamin B. Raskin has argued, District residents are
not only locked out of their national legislature but also out of what is in a structural
sense their state legislature. This shameful lack of democracy is further compounded by
the recent transfer of certain state-like functions from the District government to the
Federal government.
(f) Because District residents bear all of the burdens of citizenship, including
federal taxation in the amount of nearly $2 billion annually – higher
federal taxes than eight other states, and including wartime participation, District
residents are entitled to full representation in Congress, the same as all other U.S.
citizens. Taxation without representation led the American colonies in 1776 to declare
their independence from Britain. Equal protection requires that District residents in 1998
no longer be treated as second-class citizens.
(g) A proposed amendment to the Constitution, which would have provided District
residents with voting representation in the United States Senate and House of
Representatives as if the District were a state, was approved by the required minimum
two-thirds majority in Congress and signed by President Carter in 1978. However, the
Voting Rights Amendment died in 1985 when only 16 of the required 38 states ratified the
proposed amendment within the Congressionally required time period for ratification.
(h) A statehood initiative, which if successful would automatically place District
citizens on equal footing with other American citizens, including Congressional voting
representation, was approved by a majority of District voters in 1980. However, a
bill to admit the state of New Columbia (consisting of all but a federal enclave of the
District of Columbia) was not considered by the House of Representatives until November
1993, when it was defeated by a vote of 277-153.
(i) In early 1993, the District gained a small step in political
representation when the House of Representatives changed its rules to permit the District
delegate to the House to vote in the Committee of the Whole along with the delegates from
the four territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, and the Virgin Islands.
However, the rule provided that any time that these delegates’ votes played a decisive
role in the margin of victory of legislation, the vote would be held a second time and
delegates from the District and the territories would not be allowed to vote. Further,
even this ability to vote was short-lived, as members of the House, in January 1995,
terminated the District’s and territories’ delegates from the official voting roster.
(j) Professor Jamin B. Raskin, of the Washington College of Law at
American University, has recently authored a law review article, entitled "Is This
America? The District of Columbia and the Right to Vote", which presents extensive
legal research and case law demonstrating how the District’s disenfranchisment in Congress
burdens fundamental rights, including the following arguments which provide the groundwork
for litigation challenging the constitutionality of this disenfranchisement:
(1) The denial of Congressional representatives of the people of the
District burdens the right to be represented in Congress on the basis of one person-one
vote, regardless of geographic residency, as well as the right to run for Congress;(2) District residents are part of "the people" who must be
represented, and have the opportunity to serve, in the US. House of Representatives and,
by analogy, the Senate, but instead have been closed out of the political process;(3) The denial of representation in Congress burdens the right of
American citizens in the District to be represented in their own state legislature;
(4) The denial of representation and equal vote to the District
population bears an unconstitutional resemblance to political apartheid, because it sends
a message that majority-minority populations are not fit to govern themselves and
participate equally in the national government;
(5) The denial of representation and an equal vote to American citizens
in the District unjustifiably burdens the right to travel;
(6) The denial of representation in Congress violates the right of
citizens living in the District not to be disenfranchised in Congressional elections for
failure to pay any poll tax or other tax; and
(7) By extending full voting rights and representation in Congress to
American citizens living abroad and members of Congress living in the District, but
denying the same rights to all American citizens living in the District, Congress has
acted irrationally and with a presumed indifference or hostility to the rights of a
political community.
(k) Professor Raskin provides extensive legal research demonstrating
how this denial of fundamental constitutional rights does not bear the strict scrutiny
required under the standard of review established by the United States Supreme Court,
including the following arguments:
(1) There is no valid interest in disenfranchising the District
population because of its alleged statism, dependence on the Federal government, urban
character, or lack of political or economic diversity;(2) The Constitution does not compel Congress to disenfranchise the
District; and(3) Congress does have a compelling interest in maintaining its control
over the federal District and exercising its "seat of government" powers, but
this interest is in no way incompatible with the exercise of constitutionally protected
voting rights by District residents.
Sec. 3. The Council commends Professor Jamin B. Raskin
for his extensive legal research, hard work and dedication, and excellent advocacy to
bring representative democracy to the nation’s capital. The Council strongly supports and
would be enthusiastic about serving as one of the plaintiffs in litigation challenging the
constitutionality of the denial of Congressional voting representation of American
citizens who live in the District. The Council calls upon the legal community and others
to provide pro bono assistance to the preparation and advocacy of this important
litigation on behalf of the fundamental rights of District residents.
Sec. 4. This resolution shall take effect immediately.