Constitutional Law

DC voting "rights" bill

The WashPo is publishing the thoughts of six spokesmen, relating to the proposal to (a) give DC a seat in the House; (b) offset this Demo seat by giving Utah an extra, likely Republican, seat and (c) attach a rider rolling back most of DC's onerous gun restrictions.

What I find appalling in the commentaries is that only Bob Levy deals with the problem that (a) and (b) are clearly unconstitutional. Congress can't go around handing out seats in the House, or deciding that a constitutional violation that favors the Democratic Party is OK so long as the Republican Party is given an equal benefit by another constitutional violation. The core of constitutional government involves a lot more than equalizing benefit to the two major parties.

Article I §2: the House shall be chosen by "the people of the several States." DC is not a State. The electors of the House members must have the qualifications of electors "of the most numerous branch of the State legislature." DC has a city council, not a legislature, and not a bicameral one. Every representative must be "an inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen."

I've seen a response to the effect that Congress often defines DC as a State in the laws that it enacts. Sure, Congress can do anything by defining a word; a definition just enables brevity by making a word (for purposes of that one statute) mean several different things. For example, in the Gun Control Act, "State" is defined to include not only DC but Puerto Rico and all US possessions. That doesn't mean that the Virgin Islands and Guam each get two senators.

Full post as published by Of Arms and the Law on April 17, 2010 (boomark / email).