According to this article in The Hill, President Obama endorsed HR 157 on April 16. This is the bill to expand the size of the U.S. House, with a new seat for Utah and a seat for the District of Columbia. But the article also says that Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah will not only oppose it, but that he will organize a filibuster against it. Hatch supports the concept but he is unhappy that the bill provdes that Utah’s new seat should temporarily be elected statewide, instead of requiring that Utah immediately draw up four districts. Thanks to Rick Hasen’s ElectionLawBlog for this news.
Ballot Access News
Edited By Richard Winger
D.C. still AIN’T a State in the Union.
14th Amdt, Sec. 2.
Sorry – NO voting U.S.A. Reps. from D.C. or the U.S.A. colonies.
Sorry – NO voting U.S.A. Reps. from the old U.S.A. territories in 1789-1959.
i.e. ONE more EVIL brain dead Prez and his EVIL pack the House of Reps. EVIL scheme.
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Proper remedy – Constitutional Amdt
Uniform definition of Elector in ALL of the U.S.A.
P.R. and A.V.
Much too difficult for EVIL party hack morons to understand — especially in the EVIL brains of the party hacks from the many small States — like Utah.
Why doesn’t the House simply pass S 160?
I could be wrong, but I don’t think S160 has the gun amendment.
#3 Title II is the “Second Amendment Enforcement Act”
The House bill is really stripped down. It doesn’t even admit that there is no right to Senate representation.
Every single American has a constitutional right to demand representation. For the idiots who say that DC is not a State…we know that! The Constitution provides the legal basis for this (Article One, Section 8.) While you are at it, read the 16th Amendment also…the income tax is applicable only in the States. If you so called “strict constructionists” believe in this, then DC must be and should be tax free.
DC John,
First 16th admen. not truly ratified, Second DC is under exclusive legislation under congress for in all cases. …. Art.1 sec.8 does not provide basis for rep. of a non state. Where do you see that? It was meant to be a city for the nation, not a new state. The reason it was created was specifically NOT to be a state. If DC citizens want representation then they should be able to vote with Maryland if they would allow it.
The DC Statehood Green Party (http://www.dcstatehoodgreen.org), part of the national Green Party (http://www.gp.org), doesn’t support this bill, for several reasons.
The first is that it hardly expands democracy, since Congress will still have power over DC’s laws, policies, & finances. Representation in a legislature should never be confused with democratic self-government. History is full of oppressed & exploited colonies that had representation in the ruling empire’s legislature. Algeria had seats in the French Assembly but acquired independence through a violent revolution. Ireland had voting seats in Parliament long before Home Rule. Many of the original American colonists protested ‘taxation without representation’ but the remedy they sought was independence. Patrick Henry never said “Give me a seat in Parliament or give me death.”
Furthermore, the US Constitution grants voting representation in Congress solely to states. A court challenge might overturn the bill. So the only real solution is DC statehood.
A constitutional amendment isn’t necessary. DC can become a state by act of Congress, with a simple majority vote. This could happen with a bill to reduce the constitutionally mandated federal enclave to include only the federal properties (White House, Capitol, Mall, etc.). The rest of DC could then be admitted as a state (after a local plebiscite) the same way all the other states were admitted, after the 13 original states.
Most Dems in Congress as well as Repubs don’t like the idea of a majority-black jurisdiction, likely to elect a pair of progressive Senators & one Rep, having the status of a state. The DC Board of Trade and the Federal City Council (secretive roundtable of local business elites) have their own reasons for preferring congressional rule to local autonomy.
For more on this, visit “The DC Statehood Papers: Writings on DC Statehood & self-government, by Sam Smith” (http://prorev.com/dcsthdintro.htm). See also http://www.freedc.org and my own article (http://www.opednews.com/articles/Free-DC–The-Obama-Inaugu-by-Scott-McLarty-090115-146.html), originally published at the time of Obama’s inauguration in Roll Call.
Senator Hatch needs to get over it. There is no way Democrats will hand over a new seat to the Gerrymander happy Utah Republican legislature that has tried to redistrict out Democratic congressman Matheson (D-UT).
#5 If your interpretation of Article 1, Section 8 were correct, Congress could permit the president to appoint 1000 representatives for the District of Columbia; or Congress could eliminate the representation at any time.
It would be better simply to let District representatives vote in Maryland just as they did in the 1790s, and just as voters on the various military installations (that are also under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress under Article 1, Section 8. There would be one congressional district comprised of DC, plus a bit of Maryland; and voters would be able to vote in Maryland elections for US Senator and President.
You are misinterpreting the 16th Amendment. Direct taxes are those levied directly on individuals such as a property tax. The Constitution requires such taxes to be apportioned on the basis of population. The only two times Congress has ever levied such a tax, they simply sent a bill to each state. If a state had 4.36% of the population, and the bill was for $1,000,000, the state would be liable for $43,600.
If the federal government wanted to levy a property tax it could, but it would have to set the tax rate in each state such that the revenue was proportional to the state population. Poorer states would have higher tax rates.
If Congress were to ever levy such a tax again, the DC government would be exempt.
Congress has always had the authority to levy indirect taxes, such as excise taxes on liquor and tobacco, and tariffs and customs duties. These were levied on transactions, and would be based on sales.
When Congress tried to levy an income tax, the courts had no problem with taxes on wage income, because that was a tax on a transaction of the worker providing a service in exchange for cash. But the courts had ruled against taxes on capital gains and dividends, saying that these were taxes being levied directly on property.
The key phrase in the 16th Amendment is “from what whatever source derived”, which permitted taxation on capital gains and dividends, and the rest says that even if some of the taxes on income are “direct taxes” that these need not be apportioned on the basis of population.
#8 Then let Congress define the 4 districts for Utah.
If that is the reasoning behind their opposition, why don’t they publicly say so?
Attention any and all constitutional law MORONS on this list —
See 23rd Amdt (1961) — permitting D.C. voters to choose Prez Electors.
Sorry — D.C. still AIN’T a State in the Union for ANY other purpose.
The party hack SCOTUS folks have NOT been to detect that each State is a NATION-STATE — since 4 July 1776.
See the 1777 Articles of Confederation.
See the 1783 U.S.A.-Great Britain Peace Treaty.
See Art. VII of the nearly dead 1787 U.S.A. Constitution.
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With the 3 gerrymander SYSTEMS — U.S.A. House of Reps., U.S.A. Senate and the U.S.A. Electoral College — the ENTIRE U.S.A. regime is one giant EVIL minority rule oligarchy – tending towards a super-EVIL monarchy — with EVIL power mad Prezs since 1929.
P.R. and A.V. — to END the EVIL in the U.S.A.
THIS WILL BE A DEAD ISSUE WHEN THE GOP TAKES CONGRES IN 2011