government. The appointment of Walter Washington as Mayor deprives the opponents of home rule of their other argument against it-the whispered under-the-table argument that home rule would bring a Negro mayor. That is exactly what we have now and most citizens of Washington are mighty proud of it. Furthermore, the reorganized government provides a formal structure on which an elective government can be built. We now have a mayor and a city council; all we need to do is shift from appointive to elective officials. Possibly most important of all, Mayor Washington and the City Council have made clear that they are going to seek the views of the public on all major issues and seek to represent its wishes. The more representative the government, the easier the transition from appointive to elective office.

The time has come to take the second step toward home rule-national representation. The House of Representatives is ready to act. We ask this Subcommittee to move quickly toward the same end. We urgently need action at this session to the Congress and ratification through state legislatures meeting next year. Thousands of citizens long active in District affairs are ready to work in the states for prompt ratification in the interest of a more democratic city.

The issue today is less one whether the District should have national representation than what that national representation should be. There appears to be a consensus in both Houses of Congress that the District should have at least one Congressman with the right of the Congress to add Congressmen and Senators up to the number that our 800,000 residents would warrant if the District were a state. The major issue today seems to revolve around the question whether we should have one Congressman with the right of Congress to add or two Congressmen and two Senators at once.

There can be no question as to what the District should have. It is larger than eleven states of the Union. Its residents, living at the seat of the national government, have absorbed knowledge of and interest in national affairs. There is a wealth of District talent from which Congressmen and Senators and their staff can be chosen.

Nor is there any legal reason why the proposed constitutional amendment should not provide for Senators from the District of Columbia. Oh, it is true that an objection is sometimes urged predicated upon the last clause of Article V of the Constitution that provides that "no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate." But history tells us that this provision was put into the Constitution simply to prevent a big state from having more Senators than a little state. The framers of this so-called Connecticut Compromise were thinking in terms of big and little states, not in terms of Senators from the seat of the new government.

This point was well stated by the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia in 1922 (Report No. 507, 67th Cong., 2d Sess.). The Committee Report states (p. 16):

"But how will the admission of a Senator, or even two Senators, elected by the people of the District of Columbia, deprive any State of its equal suffrage in the Senate? The plain meaning of this provision is that no State shall have any greater numerical representation in the Senate than any other state. It can not mean that the aliquot share of the legislative power possessed by a State at any given time cannot be reduced, as the proportion of that power, which was originally 2 as to 26, has been steadily diminished by the admission of new States until it is now 2 as to 96."

There is thus no governmental or legal reason why the District of Columbia should not have full national representation including two Senators. The question simply boils down to one of practicalities. Will two-thirds of both Houses of Congress and three-fourths of the State legislatures ratify such full representation? The House Judiciary Committee apparently has decided this question in the affirmative and has proposed full representation. If this Subcommittee believes that two-thirds of the Senators will accept the House version, it should certainly so provide and let District residents beseech 38 legislatures to aprove what two-thirds of the Congress has proposed. After all, state legislatures might well ratify an amendment specifically providing for D.C. Senators as readily as one giving Congress power to provide for Senators.

The need for speed cannot be stressed too much. National representation is truly a civil rights question. 800,000 citizens of the nation are deprived of their right of representation in their government. Their enfranchisement is a matter of national urgency. Action has already been far too long delayed.

94-922-68-5

Senator BAYH. Mr. Rauh, I certainly appreciate your statement. I look forward to reading it in detail, and I am certain it, as well as your personal appearance, will be a big asset to us. Thank you very much.

Mr. RAUH. Thank you, Senator.

Senator BAYH. We will now adjourn to reconvene at 10 o'clock tomorrow.

(Whereupon, at 12:35 p.m., the subcommittee recessed, to reconvene at 10 a.m., Thursday, November 9, 1967.)

CONGRESSIONAL REPRESENTATION FOR THE

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 1967

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS
OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,

Washington, D.C.

in room

The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 10:05 a.m., 318, Old Senate Office Building, Senator Birch Bayh presiding. Present: Senator Bayh.

Also present: Larry A. Conrad, chief counsel; Clyde Flynn, minority counsel; and Bernadette McGroarty.

Senator BAYH. Commissioner Washington has been delayed this morning. Fortunately for the subcommittee we have some other witnesses who are here and we will start with them, if you please. If Mr. John Powell, president of the District of Columbia Bar Association, and Mr. Sturgis Warner, chairman of the District of Columbia Bar Association Committee on Legislation, will join us at the witness table, we will look forward to having the testimony of you gentlemen from the bar.

STATEMENT OF JOHN E. POWELL, PRESIDENT, THE BAR

ASSOCIATION OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Mr. POWELL. I am John E. Powell, president of the Bar Association of the District of Columbia.

At my side is Mr. Sturgis Warner, who is chairman of our Committee on Pending Legislation.

He has appeared here and before House committees frequently to testify upon similar questions, and either through that process or otherwise has become quite an accomplished constitutional lawyer and I am pleased that you will hear him after me.

The association of which I am president has 4,200 members, more than 4,200, I would say, and we have long espoused the principle that the District should have full representation in both Houses of Congress. We were very active in the proceedings that led to the adoption of the 23d amendment and earlier this year both Mr. Warner and myself appeared before the subcommittee of the House and testified in support of what is now House Joint Resolution 396.

The association is of the opinion that the District should have the same representation in both Houses as it would have were it a State and, therefore, of the three items, there are really only two before (63)

you this morning, but of the three possible items we would prefer House Joint Resolution 396 for that reason.

I have read the dissenting opinions attached to the House report and recognize the validity of them. However, they do not seem to me to be inseparable and I hope they would not be found so.

If for one reason or another, the Senate is of the opinion that the objections to full representation are such that it is not opportune at this time then I would hope that if a more limited form of representation would be provided, naturally we would prefer next Senate Joint Resolution 80, and last of all, Senate Joint Resolution 31.

I have filed a written statement, and what I have just said, in large part, is a summary of what I have said there.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Senator BAYH. We will ask with your permission that your full statement be put in the record as if read.

Mr. POWELL. That is what I would like to have done.

Senator BAYH. And make certain that all the points are touched there.

Mr. POWELL. Thank you.

(Statement of Mr. Powell follows:)

STATEMENT OF JOHN E. POWELL, PRESIDENT, THE BAR ASSOCIATION OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

My name is John E. Powell. I am President of the Bar Association of the District of Columbia. The Bar Association has for many years actively supported the principle of amending the Constitution to provide for elected voting representation in both houses of Congress for the citizens of the District. We urge you to start the evolutionary Constitutional process now, to bring his long-sought goal to achievement.

In 1960 the Congress by a Constitutional two-thirds vote of each house, approved the Constitutional principle that the District of Columbia, as a permanent Federal enclave with several hundred thousand permanent inhabitants, required special Constitutional treatment so that its inhabitants might participate, along with their fellow citizens living in the states, in the election of the Chief of the Executive Branch of the government. In June of 1960 the Congress sent this proposition to the states for consideration, and the states responded with a speed and vigor as they never have before. Thirty-eight state legislatures approved the proposition in less than ten months, and the Twenty-Third Amendment was declared ratified in the first week of April 1961.

We are asking you now to apply that same solid Constitutional principle to the Legislative Branch, to both houses of Congress. We are now asking for voting representation in both houses of Congress for the several hundred thousand District citizens who have no vote elsewhere, and who are deprived of one of their most basic prerequisites of citizenship solely by the fact of their permanent residence here in the Nation's Capital. What we are requesting is a clear evolutionary Constitutional change, but it is not in any way a change in the Constitutional power of the Congress over the District of Columbia-the exclusive legislative power vested in the Congress by Article I, Section 8, Clause 17. That provision of the Constitution establishes the status of the District as a permanent Federal enclave, as a permanent non-state.

None of the proposition with respect to District of Columbia voting, which are pending before either this Committee or before the other body, in any way alter or amend or dilute this Constitutional power over the District. None of them would turn the District of Columbia into a state, none of them would be a step toward statehood. All of them are based on the recognition that the District of Columbia has a unique and permanent Constitutional status, that the numbers of persons in its permanent population who cannot vote in Congressional elections

are very, very substantial, and that it requires a Constitutional amendment to enable them to do so.

If we had our choice, we would like to see the necessary change take place in one all-embracing step-a Constitutional amendment which would by itself establish offices in both houses of Congress, with voting powers, to be filled by persons elected for the District of Columbia. At the same time, we recognize that the desired end result could ultimately be established by several successive steps, such as is proposed in Senate Joint Resolution 80. This form would provide the immediate Constitutional establishment of an elected official in one house of Congress and the immediate Constitutional empowering of the Congress to establish additional offices in one or both of the houses of Congress. If the first approach were not feasible at this time as a matter of National policy, the second approach, reflected in Senate Joint Resolution 80, would at least establish the long-sought Constitutional principles and provide a basis on which to work toward the ultimate achievement of the desired goal.

A third approach is the one contained in Senate Joint Resolution 31 which is simply an empowering resolution, but which by itself would implement no part of the basic proposition in either house.

This would be our third choice, but let us bear in mind that we in the District have waited almost 170 years. We have watched the evolution of the American electorate from the sidelines. We have watched the Constitutional change in the manner of election of the Senators, from selection by state legislatures to direct election. We have watched the enfranchisement of women; we have watched changes in the way by which the President is elected, changes which began way back in 1804.

Yes, it is true that a long last we too have begun to participate in this process. We can participate in voting for the President, and this is no small step, it is appreciated; nearly a quarter of a million of our District of Columbia citizens registered to vote in the 1964 Presidential election.

The voteless status of the seat of government as established by the Constitution of 1787 is no longer simply a curiosity. It is no longer simply a cloud the size of a man's hand as it was 150 years ago, when the permanent population of the District was minute and the electoral franchise was limited for all.

Members of the Committee, at this stage of the maturity of this country, at this stage in the development of the vote in this country as an essential and effective act of citizenship, the lack of this Congressional vote in the District of Columbia is not simply an anomaly. It is a tragedy. On behalf of the Bar Association, I ask you now in this Congress to complete Congressional action on this Constitutional change to let our District citizens hold their heads high, so that they too can do their small part in participating in the process of representative government in the Congress of the United States. Thank you.

Senator BAYн. Mr. Warner?

STATEMENT OF STURGIS WARNER, CHAIRMAN OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BAR ASSOCIATION'S COMMITTEE ON PENDING LEGISLATION

Mr. WARNER. Thank you, Senator. I am wearing two hats this morning, Senator. I am associated with John Powell on bar association matters, but I would like to testify also on my own behalf because I have been working in this election field for some time, and in that second behalf I would like to make two points first.

I think the most important thing to get well established in the record, Senator, is the size of the electorate here in the District of Columbia. We keep hearing here about 800,000 people living here, and the figure, of the total population, that is the census figure and we all know that a number of those people maintain their right to vote elsewhere, aliens or for one reason or another are not part of the electorate.