September 18, 2007
Washington, D.C. Posted by John Steele Gordon at 04:05 PM EST The Senate will try today to invoke cloture in order to pass a bill that would give Washington, D.C., a vote in the House of Representatives. While I’m fully in favor of the people of Washington having a voice in Congress equal to that of other American citizens, I am not in favor of this means of giving it to them. The bill would increase the size of the House from 435 to 437 and give one seat to Washington and one seat to Utah, which missed by a hair getting an extra seat in the 2000 census. Washington would elect a Democrat and Utah, presumably, would elect a Republican, so the balance of power would not be shifted. It is a classic political compromise. There’s only one problem: It is patently unconstitutional. Article I, Section 2, states, “The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second year by the People of the several States . . . .” Article I, Section 8, gives to Congress the power “to exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States . . . become the Seat of the Government of the United States . . .” The members of the House are to be chosen by “the People of the several States,” and the District of Columbia is not a state, and this bill does not make it one. The law would certainly end up in the Supreme Court, which would, I hope, throw it out. This would put the whole business back to square one, only with increased hard feelings. Were the Supreme Court, unaccountably, to let it stand, would it end the matter? Not likely. As soon as the representative of the District of Columbia took his or her seat in the House, agitation would immediately start to give the District representation in the Senate. Artful political compromise would be harder to achieve there. The New York Times has an editorial today on the subject that is a classic example of all that is wrong with modern liberalism. Here’s what it has to say on the constitutional issue: “Opponents continue to raise constitutional issues about the district’s not being a full-fledged state; proponents offer counterarguments about Congress’s long history of dominating, even dictating, the city’s precise political freedoms.” First, the District is not a state in any way shape or form, still less a full-fledged one. Second, the Times has a very strange notion of what constitutes a counterargument. It simply ignores the inconvenient constitutional argument and changes the subject to point out, correctly, that the District has been unfairly under the thumb of Congress for 200 years. I guess the Times is arguing that the Constitution should just be ignored in the cause of “fundamental fairness,” which is liberalspeak for doing as liberals please. If there is a constitutional argument in favor of this bill, the Times does not deign to give it. I suspect if there were one, it would have. The Times writes, “This will likely end up in the courts, but what could be closer to the ideals of America’s democracy than giving D.C. taxpayers their long-denied representation?” How about obeying the fundamental law of the land? Most despicably, the Times writes, “A minimum of 60 votes is required, and it would be a grim echo of segregationist history if the Senate denied this opportunity to advance the district’s voting rights.” Isn’t that neat? Vote against this unconstitutional bill and you are a segregationist. The blithe liberal assumption that anyone who disagrees with a liberal position must, ipso facto, be a moral eunuch, is perhaps degenerate modern-day liberalism’s most pervasive and pathetic tendency. Why not fix the problem the old fashioned way, with a constitutional amendment? Here’s a proposed amendment that would give the people of Washington, D.C., exactly the same standing in federal elections as every other American citizen Amendment XXVIII Section 1 The twenty-third article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed. Section 2 For purposes of participating in elections for President, Senators, and Representatives, the citizens of the district constituting the seat of the government of the United States shall be regarded and counted as citizens of the states that ceded the territory constituting the district. One might argue that amending the Constitution is a long, drawn-out process. That is not always the case. The 23rd Amendment, which gave the people of the District of Columbia the right to vote for President, but with no more electoral votes than the least populous state, was proposed by Congress on June 16, 1960. It was declared ratified only nine months later on March 29, 1961. No amendment has ever been ratified more quickly. One of its unfortunate side effects is that it made the number of presidential electors an even number, making it more likely that a close presidential election would end up in the House. The above amendment would solve that problem.
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