[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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