[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 1 (Tuesday, January 20, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H6-H7]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA VOTING RIGHTS RESTORATION ACT
(Mr. ROHRABACHER asked and was given permission to address the House
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks and include therein
extraneous material.)
Mr. ROHRABACHER. Mr. Speaker, I have just introduced the District of
Columbia Voting Rights Restoration Act, a bill to restore full and
equal congressional voting rights, including representation in the
United States Senate, for the residents of the District of Columbia.
My bill would restore the Federal rights of Maryland citizenship that
were taken away from the District of Columbia residents over 200 years
ago by an Act of Congress, the Organic Act of 1801. Enactment of my
bill would mean that D.C. residents would once again have the full
Federal voting rights they enjoyed as Maryland citizens prior to
Congress' assumption of exclusive legislative authority over the
District of Columbia. Those rights included the right to vote for and
to be elected as and to serve as U.S. senators, U.S. representatives
and presidential electors from Maryland.
Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle not to
let small national political considerations stop us from restoring
these rights, and I would also insert the questions and answers about
my bill that I am putting on the desk today as part of the Record.
Mr. Speaker, it is time for all Members of Congress, whether
Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, to heed the legitimate
complaints of ``taxation without representation.'' We must correct this
200-year-old injustice to the U.S. citizens who live in our nation's
capital. The debate must no longer be about whether D.C. residents
should have full voting rights in Congress, but how to accomplish a
goal that we all share.
Question. Since the VRRA includes D.C. as part of the
Maryland delegation in the U.S. House, what is to keep the
Maryland legislature from splitting D.C. and joining it with
two or more Maryland congressional districts?
Answer. The VRRA would require that whenever D.C. has fewer
people than the average Maryland congressional district, D.C.
be kept intact in a single congressional district, with
contiguous territory from adjacent Maryland counties added as
necessary to produce a district equal in population to the
other Maryland districts. The VRRA also provides that
whenever D.C.'s population is equal to or larger than the
average Maryland district, then there must be at lease one
district that is 100% D.C.
The controlling Supreme Court opinion in Oregon v. Mitchell
(the 18-year-old vote case) made clear that Congress has the
power to regulate congressional redistricting by state
legislatures. Congress has exercised this power in
prohibiting at-large districts in states with more than one
House member. In this case, Congress would protect D.C. from
unfair treatment because D.C. residents would have no voice
in the Maryland legislature.
Question. Does the Constitution allow D.C. residents who do
not actually live in Maryland to choose the representatives
of that state? If it were constitutional to treat D.C.
residents as if they were residents of the state of Maryland
for the purposes of voting, would D.C. residents be
constitutionally precluded from representing the new Maryland
district, given the language of Article I specifically
requiring that representatives be
[[Page H7]]
inhabitants of the state in which they are chosen?
Answer. In addition to restoring congressional voting
rights, the VRRA also restores Maryland citizenship rights to
be a candidate for, and to serve as, U.S. Representative,
U.S. Senator, and presidential elector from Maryland.
D.C. is one of several federal enclaves in which the
residents were not considered to be ``inhabitants'' of the
states that ceded such enclaves to the federal government.
There is no reason why Congress is any more powerless to
restore the right of D.C. residents to be considered
inhabitants of Maryland for federal electoral purposes than
it was powerless to restore the rights of residents of other
federal enclaves to be considered an inhabitant of the
states, including Maryland, that ceded their place of
residence to the federal government.
Question. Because representation in the Electoral College
is based on the number of Senators and Representatives in the
states, wouldn't Maryland receive only one more electoral
vote to correspond with the new district? If so, and the
District's three reliably Democratic electoral votes were
eliminated, wouldn't the result be to tilt the votes in the
Electoral College in favor of a Republican presidential
candidate?
Answer. The VRRA add one electoral vote to Mayland's total,
and would eliminate D.C.'s current three electoral votes to
eliminate double counting. Depending on how Maryland and D.C.
vote, that would result in either a net pickup of 8 or a net
loss of 2 electoral votes for Democrats, with a small
possibility of changing the result one way or the other. It's
also possible that the D.C. votes for Members of Congress
provided by VRRA could swing control of the House and Senate
to the Democrats. The small risks involved for each political
party are a reasonable tradeoff for correcting the 200-year-
old injustice of depriving D.C. residents of congressional
representation.
Question. Shouldn't a bill creating two new House seats for
D.C. and Utah have a clause that the bill is not severable,
meaning if the D.C. portion of the bill were found to be
unconstitutional, the Utah portion also would fall?
Answer. Yes; the VRRA has such a non-severability clause.
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