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Panel weighs constitutionality of D.C. voting bill |
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By Kelly McCormack
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Posted: 05/24/07 07:07 PM [ET] |
The Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday heard arguments on the constitutionality of a bill that would grant the District of Columbia a voting member of the House and Utah an additional representative.
Four of the 14 cosponsors sit on the committee. Three of the four, Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sens. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), attended — Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) did not. No other senators showed.
Presiding as chairman of the hearing, Feingold, who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee’s Constitution panel, said the bill is “not an easy question of constitutional interpretation. There is no slam-dunk here.”
Feingold said that the matter is of “enormous consequence” because more than half a million people have no voting representation in Congress.
“While I understand the textual and historical arguments made by those who believe that right can only be granted through a constitutional amendment, I simply cannot agree that our historic charter compels that result,” Feingold said.
The constitutionality of providing D.C. a voting member of the House has come under scrutiny from legal scholars and many GOP lawmakers in the lower chamber. When the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the constitutionality of the bill a few months ago, nearly every Republican committee member was present.
Critics say the District of Columbia is not a state, and therefore should not have a voting member in the House unless the Constitution is amended.
Jonathan Turley, a professor of George Washington University who has testified several times on the topic, yesterday said there was no doubt as to the Framers’ intent. He noted that Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution limits representation to members of “the several States.”
Proponents say the District Clause of Article I, Section 8, broadly interpreted, allows Congress the power to grant D.C. a voting member of the House. They argue that the clause already is being used to require that residents pay federal taxes and go to federal court. Supporters of the bill note that overseas residents are permitted to vote.
Mark Shurtleff, attorney general for Utah, testified in support of the bill. He told the panel that he would not support legislation he believed was unconstitutional. Paraphrasing Martin Luther King Jr., Shurtleff said, “Injustice anywhere, in D.C., is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Six people, three for and three against, testified, including: Turley; John Elwood, from the Department of Justice; Patricia Wald, a former chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit; Charles Ogletree of Harvard Law School; Kenneth Thomas of Congressional Research Service; and Richard Bress, a partner at Latham & Watkins.
Last week, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee examined the legislation, which garnered support from several senators. A markup is expected in early June.
However, it remains unclear whether the bill will pass through the upper chamber. If it does, advisers to President Bush have indicated that they will recommend he veto it.
In April, the House passed a similar bill 241-177. Unlike the House version, the Senate bill would remove an at-large seat for Utah and require that the state redistrict in 2008, rather than after the 2010 census, as the House-passed bill stipulates. It also eliminates the House’s pay-as-you-go budgetary language and the D.C. delegate position.
Hatch acknowledged that the bill raises constitutional questions and reiterated that he did not think that D.C. should have statehood or Senate representation.
“This is a close and difficult constitutional question,” Hatch said. “There are legitimate arguments on both sides. The time to right this wrong is now, and we can do it this way.”
Hatch told Turley and other panel members contesting the constitutionality of the bill that when its supporters prevail, “You’ll say, ‘How in the hell could we have been so stupid?’”
Rep. Chris Cannon (Utah), a GOP member who strongly supports the legislation, told the committee that the bill would “correct two injustices” by providing “long-overdue” representative for D.C. and “restor[ing] adequate representation” for Utah. |
