Congress may soon pass unconstitutional law

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Right now, in the guise of a civil rights issue, the new Congress is attempting one of the most brazenly unconstitutional power grabs in our nation’s history. The move aims to create a new class of congressman and simply add the first of these to the 435 existing members of the United States House of Representatives.

This design will dilute the legitimate representation of the 50 states and create a dangerous precedent that, if allowed to stand, will make it legal for the federal government to alter the constitutionally defined makeup of the Congress itself with nothing more than a simple law, bypassing the required constitutional amendment process, which requires a two-thirds supermajority in Congress followed by the approval of three-fourths of the individual states.


The bill that threatens to open up this Pandora’s box goes by the Orwellian name "District of Columbia Fair and Equal House Voting Rights Act of 2007" (H.R. 328). It has already passed committee and is expected shortly to be rammed through the full House by the Democrat leadership. The purpose of H.R. 328 is to give the District of Columbia a voting representative in the House. According to its supporters, the bill is necessary to correct the “injustice” of the residents of the capital not having their own congressional delegation.

The district is defined as a possession of Congress in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution, which says the Congress shall have power:

“To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States,”

The district is thus entitled to none of the rights of a state -- for example, the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution does not apply to the district. (Of course, the individuals living in the district are entitled to all the individual rights of any American, just as an American living in other non-state territories such as Samoa or Guam would be, but the district cannot claim the rights of a state any more than Guam can.)

This means the federal district must not have a representative in either house of Congress, since the Constitution says that “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each state,” (Article 1, section 3) and that “The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states, and the electors in each state shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislature” (Article 1, section 2).

It would be difficult for the Constitution to be any more clear on this point: the Congress of the United States is composed of the representatives of the states and of the people that live in those states. (That’s why the country is called the “United States of America,” after all.) The District is not a state; it is therefore prohibited the congressmen due a state. But this Congress isn’t letting little things like the United States Constitution get in the way of adding one more representative to the House majority.

Formerly, such minor details of the law were respected by the Congress. When Congress desired in 1960 to let the population of D.C. vote in presidential elections -- a right that does not affect the status of D.C. as a neutral location in debates between states -- they did so by passing the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution, because they knew that sending a delegation to the Electoral College was a right reserved in the Constitution only to the states. The Constitution thus had to be changed to grant D.C. such an exception.

Likewise, when Congress last decided to try to undo the Founders’ work and make the District a special non-state player in Congress back in 1978, it did so honestly by passing a proposed amendment to the Constitution as required -- the “District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment.” The amendment was then sent to the states for approval, where it was rejected overwhelmingly by more than two thirds of the states. It seems the states were very happy to have the capital remain neutral ground.

Once the precedent is set, the Congress can vote to give D.C. two representatives in Congress, or any number it wants since it’s claiming a new arbitrary power. And then there’s always the possibility of adding two senators for D.C. and really changing the playing field so that it slopes well leftward. In fact, a measure stating that senators will not be sought for D.C. is being stripped from the bill (even though it would have been non-binding anyway). Regarding the prohibition on seeking senators, Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.’s non-voting (for now) delegate to the House, openly admitted to the Washington Post, “We’ll never give up on full citizenship rights. That one is not going to make it.” Today we take an inch, tomorrow we take a mile.

But then that’s how such corrupt power seeking always works -- once the foot is in the door, the crack is pushed open until you can shove two senators through -- or for that matter, until you can shove Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, and Samoa through -- for why stop at one non-state territory having a delegation in Congress?

While the media frets over the privacy rights of terrorists, the dire consequences of a nativity scene too near a courthouse in Kentucky, or some other grave “threat” to the Constitution, they are silent while the party in power in Congress plots to upend the Constitutional definition of the legislative branch itself and begin packing the Congress with illegitimate imposters. Not since the Roman Emperor Caligula tried to make his horse a Consul, has an Imperial City seen such an insulting power grab. The horse, however, was less of a threat to Rome than the current jackasses in Congress are to America.*

If said law is unconstitutional, the supreme court should veto it.

i thought washington dc was a state

I'm sorry for asking, but what't the problem? The DC population pays federal taxes, particpates in presidential elections, and has a population larger than Wyoming. Is there any legitimate reason why DC shouldn't be represented?

Allowing DC representation to vote in the house is a minor blemish on a constitution that has been thoroughly stomped into the mud. Consider the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

The question is not why the District of Columbia should not be represented. A constitutional amendment may be presented, if one objects to that. The issue is the Constitution is clear that the District is not to be treated as a state and get voting representation in congress. It is not a good thing for a society to simply ignore it's shortcut it's own laws for the sake of "fairness." The precedent that is then established could be used to pass more less honorable matters.

The latest report focuses on the two parts of the Constitution that are at the center of the D.C. vote debate. One is a clause that limits House membership to individuals chosen "by the People of the several States." Courts have determined that the phrase excludes the District, the report says.

The second relevant part of the Constitution, the "District Clause," grants Congress broad authority over the city. The bill's proponents note that the Supreme Court ruled in 1949 that Congress could use its powers to give D.C. residents the same rights as other citizens.

That case, National Mutual Insurance Co. v. Tidewater, concerned the right to have a federal court hear lawsuits involving people of two states.

But the research service says that ruling was narrow. Six justices wrote that the congressional powers over the District weren't big enough to justify making "structural changes to the federal government," the report says. Giving a vote to the District would be such a change, it says.

Congress created the Congressional Research Service to be a source of nonpartisan, objective analysis and research on legislative issues. Part of the Library of Congress, it works for members of Congress, their committees and staff and issues hundreds of reports each year.

Technically, Congress can do what it wants within the District, period.

Throw the 9th Amendment in for good measure and there's no reason why Congress can't authorize (via the US Code) voting representatives in Congress. The 16th Amendment (Income Tax) is a fine example of this. DC residents pay federal income taxes, not because of the 16th Amendment ("The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration." -- Note the same use of the same "several States" language used in Article 1, Sec. 2.) but because of Article I, Section 8, Clause 17.

The "DC" stands for District of Columbia.

gobi, nice to have some back and forth on this.

whats that? a county? sounds like its apart of south america