Legal News

A Capital Issue: Does the Constitution Bar D.C. From Getting a Vote?

By Ashby Jones

Some see the efforts to give Washington, D.C., a vote in the House of Representatives as a naked political play by Democrats to pick up another vote. We see it, however, as an interesting constitutional question, one that just may make its way to the Supreme Court at some point.

The news: The Senate decided yesterday, by a 62 to 34 vote, to take up a D.C. voting rights bill. The bill would add two seats to the 435-member house. One would go to D.C., an overwhelmingly Democratic city, and the other would go to Republican-leaning Utah — at least through 2012, when congressional seats are reapportioned. Here are stories from the WaPo, and NYT.

The WSJ’s editorial board doesn’t like the bill, partly because the GOP only stands to gain for a couple years, although the D.C. seat would be permanent. The ed board has a bigger problem, however — the bill might not be constitutional.

On Tuesday, Senator Jon Kyl assailed the bill on these grounds. “The Constitution of the United States could not be clearer . . . that representation [in the House] is limited to states,” he said. Kyl was referring to the Constitution’s language that House representatives be chosen by the “people of the several states.”

But others think the constitutional issue is more complicated than that. The bill’s co-sponsors, Joe Lieberman and Orrin Hatch, have said the Constitution gives Congress sweeping authority over matters related to the District, which they said could include adding a House seat. And as recently as 2006, Ken Starr has opined: “We have carefully considered this question and believe for three reasons the bill is within Congress’s authority: It is consistent with fundamental constitutional principles; it is consistent with the language of Congress’s constitutional power; and it is consistent with the governing legal precedents.”

LB Readers, how do you feel about this? Would you rather see a Constitutional amendment passed to effect the changes?

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on February 25, 2009 (boomark / email).