A Congressman for DC?

Mac Johnson in Human Events pulls no punches on the idea of giving the District of Columbia a vote in Congress:

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The District of Columbia was created specifically so that the federal government could sit on a tiny patch of neutral territory -- a territory without a delegation in Congress that might attempt to use its special position as the seat of the government to win an unfair advantage in Congress. During the drafting of the Constitution, the Founding Fathers had to face the issue of where to locate the capital of the newly formed United States. It was obvious to all that whatever city became the capital would enjoy a huge new influence over the politics of the nation and could use that influence to enrich itself with the dutiful help of its home state’s representatives in Congress. Because of this danger, and after a few nasty incidents of locals trying to bully the Congress in its temporary home in Philadelphia, it was decided that no state should hold the capital of all the United States.

The solution was the District of Columbia, a tiny parcel of land given to the new nation by Maryland and Virginia (Virginia’s portion was not used and was later reclaimed) that would serve as neutral ground, and would be run directly by Congress so as to avoid undue influence of the Congress by local government officials. It was the Founders’ intention to create a district without its own selfish voice in Congress -- a non-state, without a state’s rights to elect congressmen and senators. H.R. 328 seeks to undo this clever compromise and turn the nation’s common capital into a partisan mini-state less than 1/20th the size of Rhode Island.

The second problem with the D.C. power grab is that, since it was the intention of the Founders to create a voteless non-state to host the capital, the Constitution clearly prohibits giving D.C. any vote in Congress. 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).