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The Committee for the Capital City Supports H.R 3709
The "District of Columbia Voting Rights Restoration Act of 2004"

On January 20th, 2004, California Congressman Dana Rohrabacher introduced the "District of Columbia Voting Rights Restoration Act" to restore full voting rights to the residents of the District of Columbia. If enacted into law, the Act would allow District residents to vote for President and Vice-President and for members of Congress as residents of Maryland, thereby restoring the voting rights of District residents that they exercised for a time after Maryland and Virginia ceded part of their territory in 1791 to form the new federal district.

Congressman Rohrabacher’s bill would end America’s international embarrassment as the only democracy in the world that today excludes the residents of its capital city from equal participation in its national government. The bill would reverse the recent finding of human rights violation declared by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States because of the denial of voting rights to District residents.

The Act also confirms that District residents may be elected as Senators from Maryland and as Representatives in the House. This, too, confirms the historic right of District residents, as one District resident living north of the Potomac River was part of the Maryland Congressional delegation, and a second District resident, living in Alexandria that was then part of the District, represented Virginia in the House of Representatives.

Congressman Rohrabacher has offered his bill as a bi-partisan and constitutional solution to the denial of equal voting rights of District residents over a period of over 200 years. The bill recognizes the realities that:

1. Equal participation in our national government requires that District residents have representation in both the House and the Senate.
2. The Constitution is very specific that only states can have Senators.
3. Virtually all Republican members of Congress, and a large portion of Democratic members, do not support giving the city of Washington two unique senators. Two Senators for Washington, D.C., can be achieved by either statehood or a constitutional amendment, but both approaches have been tried and failed.

As a bi-partisan and constitutional solution, H.R. 3709 can pass both House and Senate and be signed into law by the President.

H.R. 3709 is constitutional.

Two separate provisions of the Constitution quite clearly give Congress the authority to restore the voting rights of District residents in the manner contemplated in Congressman Rohrabacher’s bill.

First, Article I, Section 4, provides that the states are to prescribe the "times, places and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives" in the first instance, but adds that "the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of chusing Senators." The Supreme Court specifically upheld the power of Congress to establish uniform regulations for national elections in Oregon v. Mitchell, 400 U.S. 112 (1970), even though overriding conflicting state requirements on voting ages and duration of in-state residency.

Congress has exercised its authority under Section 4 on several additional occasions. In the Uniform Overseas Citizen Absentee Voting Act, Congress has required that states count absentee ballots from uniformed personnel stationed overseas as well as from otherwise qualified American citizens living abroad for no matter how long. Congress has also forbidden state legislatures or courts in redistricting controversies to create statewide Congressional districts (except for states with only one Representative). This same constitutional grant of authority allows Congress in H. R. 3709 to place all District residents in the same Congressional district, subject to equalizing its population with that of the other Maryland Congressional districts.

Second, Article I, Section 8, making provision for a federal district as the seat of the national government, authorizes Congress to "exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District . . . ." It is under the authority of this provision that Congress has passed by some counts 537 laws that treat the District of Columbia as if it were a state so that District residents can participate in and benefit from every kind of federal program that operate in the rest of the country, and also can be subject to the same federal taxation as residents of the 50 states. Challenges in court to some of these laws have all been rejected. Similarly, it is under the power granted by this Section 8 that Congress, in effect, terminated the right of District residents to vote in national elections as residents of Maryland by enacting the Organic Act of 1801, which established a governmental structure for the new federal district. H.R. 3709 would reverse that action of Congress.

Finally, to end speculation by some that District residents would not be eligible to be elected as Senators or Representatives if they exercised their voting rights as residents of Maryland, H.R. 3709 specifically provides to the contrary. When Sections 2 and 3 of Article I were written to say that members of Congress must be "an inhabitant of that state in which he shall be chosen," the debates in the Constitutional Convention clearly show that the drafters of this language meant "inhabitant" to have precisely the same meaning as "resident." In addition, it is Congress that makes the final decision as to a member’s qualifications under Article I, Section 5, which provides that "Each House shall be the judge of the . . . qualifications of its own members."