Sec. 2. Findings

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The Congress finds the following: There is no reason, either historically or by virtue of law, why the people of the District of Columbia, the capital of the United States of America, should not have full voting representation in the Congress of the United States. Article I, section 8, clause 17 of the Constitution of the United States, which authorized the creation of the District of Columbia, provides only that the Congress shall have exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over that District.

The same clause of the Constitution provides that Congress shall exercise like authority over other Federal territories that have been purchased from the States for Federal purposes. Residents of other Federal enclaves, though also denied voting rights after becoming subject to exclusive Federal jurisdiction, have had restored their right to vote for and serve as elected Federal officials from their respective States which ceded the Federal enclaves to the United States. Congress has exercised its authority to regulate Federal elections under article I, section 4 of the Constitution to set the legal requirements that States must follow in establishing Congressional districts.

Congress has also exercised this authority to require States to allow United States citizens who are former residents, and their children who are United States citizens, who are living overseas to vote in Federal elections in the previous State of residence, notwithstanding the fact that such former residents and their children may have no intention of returning or establishing residence in that State, and notwithstanding the fact that such citizens are not subject to the laws of that State, including tax laws.

The entire territory of the current District of Columbia was ceded to the United States by the State of Maryland, one of the original 13 States of the United States. The portion of the original District of Columbia ceded to the United States by the Commonwealth of Virginia was returned to the authority of that state in 1846, and the people who now reside in that area vote as citizens of the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Supreme Court of the United States has found that the cession of legislative authority over the territory that became the District of Columbia by the States of Maryland and Virginia did not remove that territory from the United States, and that the people who live in that territory are entitled to all the rights, guarantees, and immunities of the Constitution that they formerly enjoyed as citizens of those States.

O’Donoghue v. United States, 289 U.S. 516 (1933); Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 244 (1901). Among those guarantees are the right to equal protection of the laws and the right to participate, equally with other Americans, in a Republican form of government. Since the people who lived in the territory that now makes up the District of Columbia once voted in Maryland as citizens of Maryland, and Congress by adoption of the Organic Act of 1801 severed the political connection between Maryland and the District of Columbia by statute, Congress has the power by statute to restore Maryland state citizenship rights, including Federal electoral rights, that it took away by enacting the Organic Act of 1801.

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289 U.S. 516
182 U.S. 244

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Sec. 2

Findings

SCOTUS289 U.S. 516

SCOTUS182 U.S. 244

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