District of Columbia Cash Bail Reform Act of 2025

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly oppose this undemocratic and paternalistic bill, which amends D.C. law. The over 700,000 D.C. residents, the majority of whom are Black and Brown, are capable and worthy of governing themselves.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record letters opposing this bill from D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, the entire D.C. Council, and D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb.

September 10, 2025.

Hon. James Corner,

Chairman, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Robert Garcia,

Ranking Member, House Committee on Oversight and Government

Reform, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Comer and Ranking Member Garcia: As Mayor and

Chief Executive Officer of the District of Columbia, I am

proud of the work we have accomplished to invest in our

people, strengthen our neighborhoods, and drive down crime.

Building on this progress, my Administration established the

Safe and Beautiful Emergency Operations Center to coordinate

public safety and beautification efforts as the presidential

emergency declaration ends. This structure ensures that DC

will remain proactive--bringing together local and federal

partners to sustain momentum on reducing crime and improving

quality of life for every resident.

We have worked collaboratively with this Committee on

shared priorities, including public safety, the federal

Return to Work, implementing a DC budget Fiscal Year 2025 fix

(which is still pending in the House) and revitalizing the

RFK campus; but I write now to ask you to reject 13 of the DC

bills before you today that encroach on DC's Home Rule:

Bills like H.R. 5183, the District of Columbia Home Rule

Improvement Act, make the District less efficient,

competitive, and responsive to the needs of a highly complex

unique local government that serves local, county and state

functions. Bogging down legislative and executive action only

adds costs and uncertainty, making it more difficult to

handle the economic headwinds and growth opportunities ahead.

Bills like H.R. 5214, the District of Columbia Cash Bail

Reform Act, make DC less safe. Replacing our very effective

pre-trial detention regime, which focuses on charged violent

offenses and repeat violent offenders, not just on cash bail.

I credit recent changes to our laws related to pre-trial

detention for helping to drive down violent crime in the last

two years.

And the bills to abolish the Judicial Nominations

Commission and to convert the elected DC Attorney General to

a Presidentially appointed legal officer for the District are

both less democratic and untenable for District operations.

The Judicial Nomination Commission, with seven members

appointed by the Mayor, DC Council, President, US District

Court for DC, and the DC Bar, works. As recently as last

month, President Trump nominated three federal judicial

nominees who were selected from the Commission's candidate

pool--a process that demonstrates the value of maintaining

local input. DC residents also voted to elect an Attorney

General who represents the public interest. Changes to these

charter agencies would significantly undercut the already

thin ties to autonomy that limited home rule provides.

Finally, I urge you not to up end our three-part education

funding SOAR Act. I have long supported the program to expand

opportunity for DC students. However, my support has always

been contingent on parity among all three education sectors--

public, private, and charter--and this approach is working.

We will not support changes that tip the scales away from

this core principle of fairness for DC families. As the

fastest improving urban school system, DC has become a model

for urban education. We outpace the national average on all

tested subject areas. We boast free, full-day Pre-K access

serving more than 13,200 young learners--an investment which

supports our children and our workforce. DC ranked top of the

nation in parental satisfaction regarding school choice.

Mayoral control, council oversight, and deep, targeted

investments in our students, teachers, and buildings made

these remarkable achievements possible.

I look forward to continuing a productive partnership with

the Committee--one that respects the will of DC residents and

honors the principles of home rule. Together, we can build on

our successes while protecting the autonomy that, as history

reflects, has made our city stronger.

Sincerely,

Muriel Bowser,

Mayor.

Mr. Speaker, the D.C. local legislature, the Council, has 13 members. If D.C. residents do not like how members vote, residents can vote them out of office or pass a ballot measure. That is called democracy.

Congress has 535 voting Members. None are elected by D.C. residents. If D.C. residents do not like how Members vote on local D.C. matters, residents cannot vote them out of office or pass a ballot measure. This is the antithesis of democracy.

The substance of this bill is irrelevant since there is never justification for Congress to legislate on local D.C. matters. Nevertheless, I will discuss it.

Vehicular pursuits by police officers are inherently dangerous not just for officers and suspects but for bystanders, too, and often there are other options to detain a suspect. D.C. permits vehicular pursuits, but it imposes limitations on them. According to the International Association of Chiefs of Police, vehicular pursuit policies must ``balance the risks, take all of the factors into consideration, and reach a decision that is best suited to their jurisdictions.'' Unlike D.C., 2 percent of local police departments prohibit vehicular pursuits altogether. The sponsor of this bill, who is from Louisiana, thinks he knows better than D.C. how to strike the proper balance in D.C.

I will read for my Republican colleagues part of the signing statement your fellow Republican, President Richard Nixon, issued on the D.C. Home Rule Act: ``One of the major goals of this administration is to place responsibility for local functions under local control and to provide local governments with the authority and resources they need to serve their communities effectively. The measure I sign today represents a significant step

in achieving this goal in the city of Washington. It will give the people of the District of Columbia the right to elect their own city officials and to govern themselves in local affairs. As the Nation approaches the 200th anniversary of its founding, it is particularly appropriate to assure those persons who live in our Capital City rights and privileges which have long been enjoyed by most of their countrymen.''

D.C. residents have all the obligations of American citizenship, including paying Federal taxes, serving on juries, and registering with the Selective Service, yet Congress denies them full local self- government and voting representation in Congress. The only solution to this undemocratic treatment is to grant D.C. statehood.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter explaining why the D.C. statehood bill is constitutional from leading constitutional scholars, including Larry Tribe.

May 22, 2021.

Re Washington, D.C. Admission Act, H.R. 51 and S. 51 (the

``D.C. Admission Act'').

Hon. Nancy P. Pelosi,

Speaker, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Charles E. Schumer,

Majority Leader, U.S. Senate,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Kevin O. McCarthy,

Minority Leader, U.S. Senate,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Mitch McConnell,

Minority Leader, U.S. Senate,

Washington, DC.

Dear Congressional Leaders: As scholars of the United

States Constitution, we write to correct claims that the D.C.

Admission Act is vulnerable to a constitutional challenge in

the courts. For the reasons set forth below, there is no

constitutional barrier to the State of Washington, Douglass

Commonwealth (the ``Commonwealth'') entering the Union

through a congressional joint resolution, pursuant to the

Constitution's Admissions Clause, just like the 37 other

states that have been admitted since the Constitution was

adopted. Furthermore, Congress's exercise of its express

constitutional authority to decide to admit a new state is a

classic political question, which courts are highly unlikely

to interfere with, let alone attempt to bar.

The D.C. Admission Act. The House passed the Act, as H.R.

51, on April 22, 2021, and as of this writing, the

substantively identical companion bill (S. 51) is under

consideration by the Senate. The Act provides for the

issuance of a congressional joint resolution declaring the

admittance as a State of most of the territory currently

comprising the District of Columbia, while the seat of

government (defined as the ``Capital'') will fall outside of

the boundaries of the new State and remain under federal

jurisdiction. The Act also repeals the provision of federal

law that establishes the current mechanism for District

residents to participate in presidential elections, pursuant

to Congress's authority under the Twenty-Third Amendment; and

provides for expedited consideration of the repeal of that

Amendment.

The Admissions Clause grants Congress constitutional

authority to admit the Commonwealth into the Union. The

starting point for a constitutional analysis of the Act is

the Constitution's Admissions Clause (Art. IV, Sect. 3),

which provides that ``New States may be admitted by the

Congress into this Union.'' The Clause ``vests in Congress

the essential and discretionary authority to admit new states

into the Union by whatever means it considers appropriate as

long as such means are framed within its vested powers.''

Every State admitted into the Union since the Constitution

was adopted has been admitted by congressional action

pursuant to this Clause; no State has been admitted pursuant

to a constitutional amendment.

The Supreme Court has broadly construed Congress's assigned

power to admit new states and has never interfered with

Congress's admission of a state, even when potentially

legitimate constitutional objections existed. For example, in

1863, Congress admitted into the Union West Virginia, which

had been part of the State of Virginia, in potential

violation of a provision of the Admissions Clause that bars

the formation of a new State out of a portion of the

territory of another State without the consent of the ceding

State. The Supreme Court, however, did not bar West

Virginia's admission; to the contrary, it later tacitly

approved of it.

Some critics of the D.C. Admission Act have suggested that

Maryland's consent might be required under the foregoing

provision of the Admissions Clause. This objection mistakenly

presupposes that Maryland retains a reversionary interest in

the territory currently composing the District of Columbia,

which Maryland ceded to the federal government when the

District was established in 1791. In fact, Maryland expressly

relinquished all sovereign authority over the territory at

issue when the federal government accepted it. The express

terms of the cession state that the territory was ``for ever

ceded and relinquished to the congress and government of the

United States, in full and absolute right, and exclusive

jurisdiction . . . .'' As Viet D. Dinh, who served as an

Assistant Attorney General during the presidency of George W.

Bush, has explained, because Maryland's cession of the

territory now constituting the District was full and

complete, it severed D.C. residents' now far distant

``political link with'' Maryland. The current District is not

part of Maryland, and Maryland has no claim on any portion of

the District's territory. There is accordingly no basis to

require Maryland's consent for the establishment of the new

State.

The Constitution's District Clause poses no barrier to

admitting the Commonwealth into the Union. The Constitution's

District Clause grants Congress 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.'' Based on this Clause,

Congress established the current District of Columbia, which

(as explained) was taken from territory ceded by Maryland, as

well as Virginia.

The D.C. Admission Act complies with the District Clause

because it provides that the Capital--which is defined in the

Act to include (among other things) the White House, the

Capitol Building, the United States Supreme Court Building,

and the Federal executive, legislative, and judicial office

buildings located adjacent to the Mall--will not become part

of the new State and will remain under the sovereignty of the

federal government.

Some critics have argued that the District Clause somehow

mandates that the District of Columbia permanently retain all

of its current territory, and that its size may neither be

increased or reduced by Congress. The plain language of the

District Clause says no such thing; it does not mandate that

the District be any size or shape, except it limits the

maximum size of the federal enclave to ten square miles.

Historical practice confirms that Congress can change the

size of the District. In 1791, Congress altered the

District's southern boundary to encompass portions of what

are now Alexandria, Virginia and Anacostia. Then, in 1846,

Congress retroceded Alexandria and its environs back to

Virginia. As a result, the territory composing the District

was reduced by a third.

At the time of the 1846 retrocession, the House's Committee

on the District of Columbia considered, and rejected, the

very argument that critics of the D.C. Admission Act are

raising today, reasoning that the ``true construction of [the

District Clause] would seem to be solely that Congress retain

and exercise exclusive jurisdiction'' over territory

comprising the ``seat of government.'' The language of the

District Clause, the legislators observed, places no mandate

on the size, or even the location, of that seat of

government, other than preventing the government from

``hold[ing] more than ten miles for this purpose.'' The

House's judgment was correct in 1846, and remains so today.

The Twenty-Third Amendment does not prevent Congress from

granting the Commonwealth statehood. Opponents of statehood

have suggested that the Twenty-Third Amendment bars Congress

from exercising its constitutionally enumerated authority to

grant statehood to the Commonwealth. In fact, the Amendment

poses no barrier to the admission of the Commonwealth into

the Union through an act of Congress, in accordance with the

plain language of the Admissions Clause, just as Congress has

done in connection with the admission of several other

States, including most recently Alaska and Hawaii.

Section 1 of the Twenty-Third Amendment, which was ratified

in 1961, provides:

The District constituting the seat of Government of the

United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress

may direct: A number of electors of President and Vice

President equal to the whole number of Senators and

Representatives in Congress to which the District would be

entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the

least populous State; they shall be in addition to those

appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for

the purposes of the election of President and Vice President,

to be electors appointed by a State.

By its plain terms, the Amendment poses no barrier to

Congress's admission of the Commonwealth into the Union.

Indeed, it is entirely silent on the matter.

The only question raised by the existence of the Twenty-

Third Amendment is a practical, not a constitutional one: How

best to address the Twenty-Third Amendment's provision for

the assignment of presidential electors to what will become a

vestigial seat of government, with virtually no residents?

The Act satisfactorily addresses this question by providing

for the repeal of the provision of federal law that

establishes the current mechanism for District residents to

participate in presidential elections, pursuant to Congress's

authority under the Twenty-Third Amendment, as well as by

commencing the process for repealing the Amendment itself.

Initially, the Act provides for an expedited process for

repeal of the Twenty-Third Amendment, a process that should

move forward to ratification swiftly and successfully once

the Commonwealth is admitted as a State. None of the other 50

States has reason to seek to retain three electors for a

largely unoccupied seat of government.

But the Act also addresses the possibility that the Twenty-

Third Amendment is not

promptly repealed by mandating the immediate repeal of the

provision of federal law that provides the current mechanism

for District residents to participate in federal elections.

In 1961, following the adoption of the Twenty-Third

Amendment, Congress exercised its enforcement authority by

enacting legislation (codified at 3 U.S.C. Sec. 21),

providing that the District residents may select presidential

electors; the votes of the electors are currently awarded to

the ticket prevailing in the District's presidential

election.

The existing statutes fall within the broad authority

granted to Congress by the Twenty-Third Amendment to define

the terms of, and effectuate, the District's participation in

presidential elections. The Amendment allows for the

appointment of a number of Electors ``in such manner as the

Congress may direct.'' The Amendment also allows Congress to

select the number of Electors the District may receive,

subject only to a maximum: The District may participate in

the presidential Electoral College through the appointment of

no more electors than those of the smallest State, i.e.,

three. And section 2 of the Amendment grants Congress the

power to ``enforce'' the provision ``by appropriate

legislation,'' as it did in 1961.

But once Congress acts again, pursuant to its express grant

of constitutional authority, and repeals the legislation that

creates the existing procedure for District residents to

select presidential electors, that will remove the

legislative provision providing for the District's

participation in presidential elections. Without such a

provision, there is no mechanism for identifying the Capital

area's electors or allocating their votes.

Some scholars have questioned whether that approach is

satisfactory. They contend that the Twenty-Third Amendment is

self-enforcing, and effectively mandates the appointment of

electors on behalf of the District of Columbia, regardless of

whether such appointment is called for under a federal

statute. Some of us disagree; indeed, the very existence of

Section 2 of the Amendment makes clear that enabling

legislation is required to effectuate the District's

participation in the presidential election process. And

Congress's 1961 enforcement legislation supports this

interpretation.

Even if this self-enforcement argument were to be accepted,

however, Congress could easily address it by replacing the

current law mandating that the Capital area's electors vote

in accordance with the outcome of the popular vote in the

District with a new legislative mandate that the Capital

area's electors vote in other ways. For example, Congress

could require District electors to vote in favor of the

presidential ticket that receives the most Electoral College

votes (of the remaining 538 electors). Or, alternatively,

Congress could require that District electors vote for the

winner of the national popular vote winner.

A recent Supreme Court decision confirms that a legislative

directive to the Capital area's electors would be

enforceable. The Twenty-Third Amendment provides that the

District ``shall appoint'' electors ``in such manner as

Congress may direct''; this language is a direct parallel to

the Constitution's grant of broad authority to each of the

States to appoint and instruct their respective electors. In

its recent decision in Chiafalo v. Washington, the Supreme

Court held that electors do not have discretion to decide how

to cast their Electoral College votes, but rather are legally

bound to follow the instructions given by their respective

states.

As Columbia Law School Professors Jessica Bulman-Pozen and

Olatunde Johnson have observed, it follows from the Court's

holding in Chiafalo that Congress could legally bind any

electors to vote in accordance with the overall vote of the

Electoral College or the national popular vote, just as the

existing enabling statute currently binds them to vote in the

Electoral College in accordance with the outcome of the

popular vote in the District.

In sum, none of the critics' constitutional objections to

the D.C. Admission Act are meritorious; and the contention

that a constitutional amendment is required to admit the

Commonwealth into the Union is incorrect. The D.C. Admission

Act calls for a proper exercise of Congress' express

authority under the Constitution to admit new states, a power

that it has exercised 37 other times since the Constitution

was adopted.

Courts are unlikely to second-guess Congress's exercise of

its constitutional authority to admit the Commonwealth into

the Union. Apart from the fact that the legal objections to

admission of the Commonwealth as a State are without merit,

it is also unlikely that the courts will ever consider those

objections. As Mr. Dinh has observed, the decision whether to

admit a state into the Union is a paradigmatic political

question that the Constitution expressly and exclusively

assigns to Congress. The Supreme Court has long, and

strenuously, avoided adjudicating disputes respecting matters

that the Constitution makes the sole responsibility of the

coordinate, elected branches.

The remaining objections to Statehood do not concern

applicable constitutional law, but rather matters of policy.

For example, some have argued that the District should not

be admitted to the Union because it is a single city and have

instead proposed that most of the District's territory be

retrocessioned to Maryland. There is, however, no

constitutional barrier to a large, diverse city, with a

population comparable to that of several existing States,

joining the Union. Furthermore, the Maryland retrocession

proposal is subject to many of the same supposed

constitutional objections raised by those who object to

statehood for the District. For example, retroceding the

District to Maryland would decrease the size of the remaining

federal enclave, which objectors to District Statehood have

claimed is constitutionally impermissible. A forced merger of

the District and Maryland would also do nothing to address

the purported constitutional objection to leaving the

residual seat of government with three potential electors,

pursuant to the terms of the Twenty-Third Amendment, prior to

the Amendment's repeal.

Opponents also argue that Congress should not grant the

District statehood because it will lead to a lawsuit. But any

court challenge will be without merit, and indeed likely will

be dismissed as presenting a political question. We

respectfully submit that Congress should not avoid exercising

its express constitutional authority to admit the

Commonwealth into the Union because of meritless threats of

litigation.

Sincerely yours,

Caroline Fredrickson, Georgetown University Law Center;

Erwin Chemerinsky, University of California, Berkeley School

of Law; Stephen I. Vladeck, University of Texas Law School;

Franita Tolson, University of Southern California, Gould

School of Law; Jessica Bulman-Pozen, Columbia Law School;

Leah Litman, University of Michigan Law School; Laurence H.

Tribe, Harvard Law School; Paul Smith, Georgetown University

Law Center; Geoffrey R. Stone, University of Chicago Law

School; Peter Edelman, Georgetown University Law Center;

Kermit Roosevelt, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law

School; Eric Segall, Georgia State College of Law; Trevor

Potter, Campaign Legal Center.

Gregory P. Downs, University of California, Davis; Larry

Sabato, University of Virginia; Aziz Huq, University of

Chicago Law School; Jennifer Hochschild, Harvard University;

Neil S. Siegel, Duke University School of Law; Beau Breslin,

Skidmore College; David C. Vladeck, Georgetown University Law

Center; Sanford Levinson, University of Texas at Austin

School of Law; Ira C. Lupu, George Washington University Law

School; Peter M. Shane, Ohio State University Moritz College

of Law; Ira P. Robbins, American University Washington

College of Law; Michael Greenberger, University of Maryland

Francis King Carey School of Law; David Pozen, Columbia Law

School.

Mark Tushnet, Harvard Law School; Michael C. Dorf, Cornell

Law School; Miguel Schor, Drake University School of Law;

David S. Schwartz, University of Wisconsin Law School;

Caroline Mala Corbin, University of Miami School of Law;

Jonathan Askin, Brooklyn Law School; Aziz Rana, Cornell Law

School; John Mikhail, Georgetown University Law Center;

Richard Ford, Stanford Law School; Richard Primus, University

of Michigan Law School; Joseph Fishkin, University of Texas

Law School; Kate Masur, Northwestern University; Chris

Edelson, American University.

The D.C. statehood bill, H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, grants D.C. residents full local self-government and voting representation in Congress. H.R. 51 reduces the size of the Federal District from 68 square miles to 2 square miles, consisting of the White House, the Capitol, the Supreme Court, The National Mall and remaining under the control of Congress.

The new State consists of the residential and commercial areas of D.C. The new State has a larger population than two States, pays more Federal taxes per capita than any State, and pays more total Federal taxes than 21 States.

Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to vote ``no'' on the D.C. Policing Protection Act, keep their hands off D.C. and free D.C.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly oppose this bill, which repeals the police accountability and transparency law that the District of Columbia enacted in 2023.

Last year, violent crime in D.C. was down 35 percent, reaching an over 30-year low. This year, violent crime in D.C. is down 28 percent compared to the same period last year.

D.C.'s Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act, among other things, gave the police chief more authority to discipline officers for serious misconduct and crimes; strengthened civilian oversight of the police department; improved public access to body-worn camera video; and imposed limitations on the purchase of military weapons and the use of force. D.C. police chiefs have requested more authority to discipline officers for at least 25 years before enactment of this law. This bill would take away this authority from the police chief.

The difficulty D.C. has had recruiting and retaining police officers is not unique. It is a nationwide issue that predates the police accountability and transparency laws enacted across the country after the murder of George Floyd. In 2019, before the murder of George Floyd, the International Association of Chiefs of Police conducted a survey that found ``The challenge of recruiting law enforcement is widespread and affects agencies of all types, sizes, and locations across the United States.''

``The difficulty of recruiting law enforcement officers and employees is not due to one particular cause. Rather, multiple social, political, and economic forces are all simultaneously at play.''

In 1973, Congress passed the D.C. Home Rule Act, which established locally elected chief executive officer and legislature. The purpose of the Home Rule Act is to ``grant to inhabitants of the District of Columbia powers of local government'' and ``relieve Congress of the burden of legislating upon essentially local District matters,'' yet the House today is denying D.C. residents local self-government and spending its time on local D.C. matters.

Mr. Speaker, I remind my Republican colleagues what Republican President Richard Nixon said when he signed the Home Rule Act: ``One of the major goals of this administration is to place responsibility for local functions under local control and to provide local governments with the authority and resources they need to serve their communities effectively. The measure I sign today represents a significant step in achieving this goal in the city of Washington. It will give the people of the District of Columbia the right to elect their own city officials and to govern themselves in local affairs.

``As the Nation approaches the 200th anniversary of its founding, it is particularly appropriate to assure those persons who live in our Capital City rights and privileges which have long been enjoyed by most of their countrymen.''

The over 700,000 D.C. residents, the majority of whom are Black and Brown, are capable and worthy of governing themselves.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record letters opposing this bill from the D.C. Mayor, from the D.C. Council, and the D.C. Attorney General, all of whom were elected by D.C. residents.

September 10, 2025.

Hon. James Comer,

Chairman, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Robert Garcia,

Ranking Member, House Committee on Oversight and Government

Reform,

Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Comer and Ranking Member Garcia: As Mayor and

Chief Executive Officer of the District of Columbia, I am

proud of the work we have accomplished to invest in our

people, strengthen our neighborhoods, and drive down crime.

Building on this progress, my Administration established the

Safe and Beautiful Emergency Operations Center to coordinate

public safety and beautification efforts as the presidential

emergency declaration ends. This structure ensures that DC

will remain proactive--bringing together local and federal

partners to sustain momentum on reducing crime and improving

quality of life for every resident.

We have worked collaboratively with this Committee on

shared priorities, including public safety, the federal

Return to Work, implementing a DC budget Fiscal Year 2025 fix

(which is still pending in the House) and revitalizing the

RFK campus; but I write now to ask you to reject 13 of the DC

bills before you today that encroach on DC's Home Rule:

Bills like H.R. 5183, the District of Columbia Home Rule

Improvement Act, make the District less efficient,

competitive, and responsive to the needs of a highly complex

unique local government that serves local, county and state

functions. Bogging down legislative and executive action only

adds costs and uncertainty, making it more difficult to

handle the economic headwinds and growth opportunities ahead.

Bills like H.R. 5214, the District of Columbia Cash Bail

Reform Act, make DC less safe. Replacing our very effective

pre-trial detention regime, which focuses on charged violent

offenses and repeat violent offenders, not just on cash bail.

I credit recent changes to our laws related to pre-trial

detention for helping to drive down violent crime in the last

two years.

And the bills to abolish the Judicial Nominations

Commission and to convert the elected DC Attorney General to

a Presidentially appointed legal officer for the District are

both less democratic and untenable for District operations.

The Judicial Nomination Commission, with seven members

appointed by the Mayor, DC Council, President, US District

Court for DC, and the DC Bar, works. As recently as last

month, President Trump nominated three federal judicial

nominees who were selected from the Commission's candidate

pool--a process that demonstrates the value of maintaining

local input. DC residents also voted to elect an Attorney

General who represents the public interest. Changes to these

charter agencies would significantly undercut the already

thin ties to autonomy that limited home rule provides.

Finally, I urge you not to up end our three-pall education

funding SOAR Act. I have long supported the program to expand

opportunity for DC students. However, my support has always

been contingent on parity among all three education sectors--

public, private, and charter--and this approach is working.

We will not support changes that tip the scales away from

this core principle of fairness for DC families. As the

fastest improving urban school system, DC has become a model

for urban education. We outpace the national average on all

tested subject areas. We boast free, full-day Pre-K access

serving more than 13,200 young learners--an investment which

supports our children and our workforce. DC ranked top of the

nation in parental satisfaction regarding school choice.

Mayoral control, council oversight, and deep, targeted

investments in our students, teachers, and buildings made

these remarkable achievements possible.

I look forward to continuing a productive partnership with

the Committee--one that respects the will of DC residents and

honors the principles of home rule. Together, we can build on

our successes while protecting the autonomy that, as history

reflects, has made our city stronger.

Sincerely,

Muriel Bowser,

Mayor.

Mr. Speaker, D.C. residents have all the obligations of American citizenship, including paying Federal taxes, serving on juries, and registering with the Selective Service, yet Congress denies them full local self-government and voting representation in Congress.

The only solution to this undemocratic treatment is to grant D.C. statehood.

I include in the Record a letter from leading constitutional scholars explaining why the D.C. statehood bill is constitutional.

May 22, 2021.

Re Washington, D.C. Admission Act, H.R. 51 and S. 51 (the

``D.C. Admission Act'').

Hon. Nancy P. Pelosi,

Speaker, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Charles E. Schumer,

Majority Leader, U.S. Senate,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Kevin O. McCarthy,

Minority Leader, U.S. Senate,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Mitch McConnell,

Minority Leader, U.S. Senate,

Washington, DC.

Dear Congressional Leaders: As scholars of the United

States Constitution, we write to correct claims that the D.C.

Admission Act is vulnerable to a constitutional challenge in

the courts. For the reasons set forth below, there is no

constitutional barrier to the State of Washington, Douglass

Commonwealth (the ``Commonwealth'') entering the Union

through a congressional joint resolution, pursuant to the

Constitution's Admissions Clause, just like the 37 other

states that have been admitted since the Constitution was

adopted. Furthermore, Congress's exercise of its express

constitutional authority to decide to admit a new state is a

classic political question, which courts are highly unlikely

to interfere with, let alone attempt to bar.

The D.C. Admission Act. The House passed the Act, as H.R.

51, on April 22, 2021, and as of this writing, the

substantively identical companion bill (S. 51) is under

consideration by the Senate. The Act provides for the

issuance of a congressional joint resolution declaring the

admittance as a State of most of the territory currently

comprising the District of Columbia, while the seat of

government (defined as the ``Capital'') will fall

outside of the boundaries of the new State and remain under

federal jurisdiction. The Act also repeals the provision of

federal law that establishes the current mechanism for

District residents to participate in presidential elections,

pursuant to Congress's authority under the Twenty-Third

Amendment; and provides for expedited consideration of the

repeal of that Amendment.

The Admissions Clause grants Congress constitutional

authority to admit the Commonwealth into the Union. The

starting point for a constitutional analysis of the Act is

the Constitution's Admissions Clause (Art. IV, Sect. 3),

which provides that ``New States may be admitted by the

Congress into this Union.'' The Clause ``vests in Congress

the essential and discretionary authority to admit new states

into the Union by whatever means it considers appropriate as

long as such means are framed within its vested powers.''

Every State admitted into the Union since the Constitution

was adopted has been admitted by congressional action

pursuant to this Clause; no State has been admitted pursuant

to a constitutional amendment.

The Supreme Court has broadly construed Congress's assigned

power to admit new states and has never interfered with

Congress's admission of a state, even when potentially

legitimate constitutional objections existed. For example, in

1863, Congress admitted into the Union West Virginia, which

had been part of the State of Virginia, in potential

violation of a provision of the Admissions Clause that bars

the formation of a new State out of a portion of the

territory of another State without the consent of the ceding

State. The Supreme Court, however, did not bar West

Virginia's admission; to the contrary, it later tacitly

approved of it.

Some critics of the D.C. Admission Act have suggested that

Maryland's consent might be required under the foregoing

provision of the Admissions Clause. This objection mistakenly

presupposes that Maryland retains a reversionary interest in

the territory currently composing the District of Columbia,

which Maryland ceded to the federal government when the

District was established in 1791. In fact, Maryland expressly

relinquished all sovereign authority over the territory at

issue when the federal government accepted it. The express

terms of the cession state that the territory was ``for ever

ceded and relinquished to the congress and government of the

United States, in full and absolute right, and exclusive

jurisdiction . . . .'' As Viet D. Dinh, who served as an

Assistant Attorney General during the presidency of George W.

Bush, has explained, because Maryland's cession of the

territory now constituting the District was full and

complete, it severed D.C. residents' now far distant

``political link with'' Maryland. The current District is not

part of Maryland, and Maryland has no claim on any portion of

the District's territory. There is accordingly no basis to

require Maryland's consent for the establishment of the new

State.

The Constitution's District Clause poses no barrier to

admitting the Commonwealth into the Union. The Constitution's

District Clause grants Congress 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.'' Based on this Clause,

Congress established the current District of Columbia, which

(as explained) was taken from territory ceded by Maryland, as

well as Virginia.

The D.C. Admission Act complies with the District Clause

because it provides that the Capital--which is defined in the

Act to include (among other things) the White House, the

Capitol Building, the United States Supreme Court Building,

and the Federal executive, legislative, and judicial office

buildings located adjacent to the Mall--will not become part

of the new State and will remain under the sovereignty of the

federal government.

Some critics have argued that the District Clause somehow

mandates that the District of Columbia permanently retain all

of its current territory, and that its size may neither be

increased or reduced by Congress. The plain language of the

District Clause says no such thing; it does not mandate that

the District be any size or shape, except it limits the

maximum size of the federal enclave to ten square miles.

Historical practice confirms that Congress can change the

size of the District. In 1791, Congress altered the

District's southern boundary to encompass portions of what

are now Alexandria, Virginia and Anacostia. Then, in 1846,

Congress retroceded Alexandria and its environs back to

Virginia. As a result, the territory composing the District

was reduced by a third.

At the time of the 1846 retrocession, the House's Committee

on the District of Columbia considered, and rejected, the

very argument that critics of the D.C. Admission Act are

raising today, reasoning that the ``true construction of [the

District Clause] would seem to be solely that Congress retain

and exercise exclusive jurisdiction'' over territory

comprising the ``seat of government.'' The language of the

District Clause, the legislators observed, places no mandate

on the size, or even the location, of that seat of

government, other than preventing the government from

``hold[ing] more than ten miles for this purpose.'' The

House's judgment was correct in 1846, and remains so today.

The Twenty-Third Amendment does not prevent Congress from

granting the Commonwealth statehood. Opponents of statehood

have suggested that the Twenty-Third Amendment bars Congress

from exercising its constitutionally enumerated authority to

grant statehood to the Commonwealth. In fact, the Amendment

poses no barrier to the admission of the Commonwealth into

the Union through an act of Congress, in accordance with the

plain language of the Admissions Clause, just as Congress has

done in connection with the admission of several other

States, including most recently Alaska and Hawaii.

Section 1 of the Twenty-Third Amendment, which was ratified

in 1961, provides:

The District constituting the seat of Government of the

United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress

may direct: A number of electors of President and Vice

President equal to the whole number of Senators and

Representatives in Congress to which the District would be

entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the

least populous State; they shall be in addition to those

appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for

the purposes of the election of President and Vice President,

to be electors appointed by a State.

By its plain terms, the Amendment poses no barrier to

Congress's admission of the Commonwealth into the Union.

Indeed, it is entirely silent on the matter.

The only question raised by the existence of the Twenty-

Third Amendment is a practical, not a constitutional one: How

best to address the Twenty-Third Amendment's provision for

the assignment of presidential electors to what will become a

vestigial seat of government, with virtually no residents?

The Act satisfactorily addresses this question by providing

for the repeal of the provision of federal law that

establishes the current mechanism for District residents to

participate in presidential elections, pursuant to Congress's

authority under the Twenty-Third Amendment, as well as by

commencing the process for repealing the Amendment itself.

Initially, the Act provides for an expedited process for

repeal of the Twenty-Third Amendment, a process that should

move forward to ratification swiftly and successfully once

the Commonwealth is admitted as a State. None of the other 50

States has reason to seek to retain three electors for a

largely unoccupied seat of government.

But the Act also addresses the possibility that the Twenty-

Third Amendment is not promptly repealed by mandating the

immediate repeal of the provision of federal law that

provides the current mechanism for District residents to

participate in federal elections.

In 1961, following the adoption of the Twenty-Third

Amendment, Congress exercised its enforcement authority by

enacting legislation (codified at 3 U.S.C. Sec. 21),

providing that the District residents may select presidential

electors; the votes of the electors are currently awarded to

the ticket prevailing in the District's presidential

election.

The existing statutes fall within the broad authority

granted to Congress by the Twenty-Third Amendment to define

the terms of, and effectuate, the District's participation in

presidential elections. The Amendment allows for the

appointment of a number of Electors ``in such manner as the

Congress may direct.'' The Amendment also allows Congress to

select the number of Electors the District may receive,

subject only to a maximum: The District may participate in

the presidential Electoral College through the appointment of

no more electors than those of the smallest State, i.e.,

three. And section 2 of the Amendment grants Congress the

power to ``enforce'' the provision ``by appropriate

legislation,'' as it did in 1961.

But once Congress acts again, pursuant to its express grant

of constitutional authority, and repeals the legislation that

creates the existing procedure for District residents to

select presidential electors, that will remove the

legislative provision providing for the District's

participation in presidential elections. Without such a

provision, there is no mechanism for identifying the Capital

area's electors or allocating their votes.

Some scholars have questioned whether that approach is

satisfactory. They contend that the Twenty-Third Amendment is

self-enforcing, and effectively mandates the appointment of

electors on behalf of the District of Columbia, regardless of

whether such appointment is called for under a federal

statute. Some of us disagree; indeed, the very existence of

Section 2 of the Amendment makes clear that enabling

legislation is required to effectuate the District's

participation in the presidential election process. And

Congress's 1961 enforcement legislation supports this

interpretation.

Even if this self-enforcement argument were to be accepted,

however, Congress could easily address it by replacing the

current law mandating that the Capital area's electors vote

in accordance with the outcome of the popular vote in the

District with a new legislative mandate that the Capital

area's electors vote in other ways. For example, Congress

could require District electors to vote in favor of the

presidential ticket that receives the most Electoral College

votes (of the remaining 538 electors). Or, alternatively,

Congress could require that District electors vote for the

winner of the national popular vote winner.

A recent Supreme Court decision confirms that a legislative

directive to the Capital

area's electors would be enforceable. The Twenty-Third

Amendment provides that the District ``shall appoint''

electors ``in such manner as Congress may direct''; this

language is a direct parallel to the Constitution's grant of

broad authority to each of the States to appoint and instruct

their respective electors. In its recent decision in Chiafalo

v. Washington, the Supreme Court held that electors do not

have discretion to decide how to cast their Electoral College

votes, but rather are legally bound to follow the

instructions given by their respective states.

As Columbia Law School Professors Jessica Bulman-Pozen and

Olatunde Johnson have observed, it follows from the Court's

holding in Chiafalo that Congress could legally bind any

electors to vote in accordance with the overall vote of the

Electoral College or the national popular vote, just as the

existing enabling statute currently binds them to vote in the

Electoral College in accordance with the outcome of the

popular vote in the District.

In sum, none of the critics' constitutional objections to

the D.C. Admission Act are meritorious; and the contention

that a constitutional amendment is required to admit the

Commonwealth into the Union is incorrect. The D.C. Admission

Act calls for a proper exercise of Congress' express

authority under the Constitution to admit new states, a power

that it has exercised 37 other times since the Constitution

was adopted.

Courts are unlikely to second-guess Congress's exercise of

its constitutional authority to admit the Commonwealth into

the Union. Apart from the fact that the legal objections to

admission of the Commonwealth as a State are without merit,

it is also unlikely that the courts will ever consider those

objections. As Mr. Dinh has observed, the decision whether to

admit a state into the Union is a paradigmatic political

question that the Constitution expressly and exclusively

assigns to Congress. The Supreme Court has long, and

strenuously, avoided adjudicating disputes respecting matters

that the Constitution makes the sole responsibility of the

coordinate, elected branches.

The remaining objections to Statehood do not concern

applicable constitutional law, but rather matters of policy.

For example, some have argued that the District should not

be admitted to the Union because it is a single city and have

instead proposed that most of the District's territory be

retrocessioned to Maryland. There is, however, no

constitutional barrier to a large, diverse city, with a

population comparable to that of several existing States,

joining the Union. Furthermore, the Maryland retrocession

proposal is subject to many of the same supposed

constitutional objections raised by those who object to

statehood for the District. For example, retroceding the

District to Maryland would decrease the size of the remaining

federal enclave, which objectors to District Statehood have

claimed is constitutionally impermissible. A forced merger of

the District and Maryland would also do nothing to address

the purported constitutional objection to leaving the

residual seat of government with three potential electors,

pursuant to the turns of the Twenty-Third Amendment, prior to

the Amendment's repeal.

Opponents also argue that Congress should not grant the

District statehood because it will lead to a lawsuit. But any

court challenge will be without merit, and indeed likely will

be dismissed as presenting a political question. We

respectfully submit that Congress should not avoid exercising

its express constitutional authority to admit the

Commonwealth into the Union because of meritless threats of

litigation.

Sincerely yours,

Caroline Fredrickson, Georgetown University Law Center;

Erwin Chemerinsky, University of California, Berkeley School

of Law; Stephen I. Vladeck, University of Texas Law School;

Franita Tolson, University of Southern California, Gould

School of Law; Jessica Bulman-Pozen, Columbia Law School;

Leah Litman, University of Michigan Law School; Laurence H.

Tribe, Harvard Law School; Paul Smith, Georgetown University

Law Center; Geoffrey R. Stone, University of Chicago Law

School; Peter Edelman, Georgetown University Law Center;

Kermit Roosevelt, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law

School; Eric Segall, Georgia State College of Law; Trevor

Potter, Campaign Legal Center; Gregory P. Downs, University

of California, Davis; Larry Sabato, University of Virginia;

Aziz Huq, University of Chicago Law School; Jennifer

Hochschild, Harvard University; Neil S. Siegel, Duke

University School of Law; Beau Breslin, Skidmore College.

David C. Vladeck, Georgetown University Law Center; Sanford

Levinson, University of Texas at Austin School of Law; Ira C.

Lupu, George Washington University Law School; Peter M.

Shane, Ohio State University Moritz College of Law; Ira P.

Robbins, American University Washington College of Law;

Michael Greenberger, University of Maryland Francis King

Carey School of Law; David Pozen, Columbia Law School; Mark

Tushnet, Harvard Law School; Michael C. Dorf, Cornell Law

School; Miguel Schor, Drake University School of Law; David

S. Schwartz, University of Wisconsin Law School; Caroline

Mala Corbin, University of Miami School of Law; Jonathan

Askin, Brooklyn Law School; Aziz Rana, Cornell Law School;

John Mikhail, Georgetown University Law Center; Richard Ford,

Stanford Law School; Richard Primus, University of Michigan

Law School; Joseph Fishkin, University of Texas Law School;

Kate Masur, Northwestern University; Chris Edelson, American

University.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on H.R. 5107, an undemocratic and paternalistic bill. Free D.C.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding time.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly oppose this undemocratic and paternalistic bill which amends D.C. law. The over 700,000 D.C. residents, the majority of whom are Black and Brown, are capable and worthy of governing themselves.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record letters opposing this bill from D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, the entire D.C. Council, and D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb.

September 10, 2025.

Hon. James Comer,

Chairman, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Robert Garcia,

Ranking Member, House Committee on Oversight and Government

Reform, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Comer and Ranking Member Garcia: As Mayor and

Chief Executive Officer of the District of Columbia, I am

proud of the work we have accomplished to invest in our

people, strengthen our neighborhoods, and drive down crime.

Building on this progress, my Administration established the

Safe and Beautiful Emergency Operations Center to coordinate

public safety and beautification efforts as the presidential

emergency declaration ends. This structure ensures that DC

will remain proactive--bringing together local and federal

partners to sustain momentum on reducing crime and improving

quality of life for every resident.

We have worked collaboratively with this Committee on

shared priorities, including public safety, the federal

Return to Work, implementing a DC budget Fiscal Year 2025 fix

(which is still pending in the House) and revitalizing the

RFK campus; but I write now to ask you to reject 13 of the DC

bills before you today that encroach on DC's Home Rule:

Bills like H.R. 5183, the District of Columbia Home Rule

Improvement Act, make the District less efficient,

competitive, and responsive to the needs of a highly complex

unique local government that serves local, county and state

functions. Bogging down legislative and executive action only

adds costs and uncertainty, making it more difficult to

handle the economic headwinds and growth opportunities ahead.

Bills like H.R. 5214, the District of Columbia Cash Bail

Reform Act, make DC less safe. Replacing our very effective

pre-trial detention regime, which focuses on charged violent

offenses and repeat violent offenders, not just on cash bail.

I credit recent changes to our laws related to pre-trial

detention for helping to drive down violent crime in the last

two years.

And the bills to abolish the Judicial Nominations

Commission and to convert the elected DC Attorney General to

a Presidentially appointed legal officer for the District are

both less democratic and untenable for District operations.

The Judicial Nomination Commission, with seven members

appointed by the Mayor, DC Council, President, US District

Court for DC, and the DC Bar, works. As recently as last

month, President Trump nominated three federal judicial

nominees who were selected from the Commission's candidate

pool--a process that demonstrates the value of maintaining

local input. DC residents also voted to elect an Attorney

General who represents the public interest. Changes to these

charter agencies would significantly undercut the already

thin ties to autonomy that limited home rule provides.

Finally, I urge you not to up end our three-part education

funding SOAR Act. I have long supported the program to expand

opportunity for DC students. However, my support has always

been contingent on parity among all three education sectors--

public, private, and charter--and this approach is working.

We will not support changes that tip the scales away from

this core principle of fairness for DC families. As the

fastest improving urban school system, DC has become a model

for urban education. We outpace the national average on all

tested subject areas. We boast free, full-day Pre-K access

serving more than 13,200 young learners--an investment which

supports our children and our workforce. DC ranked top of the

nation in parental satisfaction regarding school choice.

Mayoral control, council oversight, and deep, targeted

investments in our students, teachers, and buildings made

these remarkable achievements possible.

I look forward to continuing a productive partnership with

the Committee--one that respects the will of DC residents and

honors the principles of home rule. Together, we can build on

our successes while protecting the autonomy that, as history

reflects, has made our city stronger.

Sincerely,

Muriel Bowser,

Mayor.

While Congress has authority to legislate on local D.C. matters, it does not have a duty to do so. It is a choice.

In Federalist 43, James Madison said of D.C. residents: `` . . . as a municipal legislature for local purposes, derived from their own suffrages, will, of course, be allowed them.''

Since 1802, Congress has established various types of local government for D.C. In 1953, the Supreme Court held: `` . . . there is no constitutional barrier to the delegation by Congress to the District of Columbia of full legislative power.''

The local D.C. Legislature, the Council, has 13 members. If D.C. residents do not like how members vote, residents can vote them out of office or pass a ballot measure. That is called democracy.

Congress has 535 voting Members. None are elected by D.C. residents. If D.C. residents do not like how Members vote on local D.C. matters, residents cannot vote them out of office or pass a ballot measure.

That is the antithesis of democracy.

The substance of this bill is irrelevant, since there is never justification for Congress to legislate on local D.C. matters. Nevertheless, I will discuss it.

I strongly oppose charging 14-year-olds as adults. However, whether to amend D.C. law to reduce or increase the minimum age a minor can be charged as an adult should be a decision for D.C. alone.

In a series of cases since 2005, the Supreme Court has recognized that children are ``constitutionally different from adults for purposes of sentencing.''

In these cases, the court noted that childhood is marked by ``rashness, proclivity for risk, and inability to assess consequences.'' The court said its decisions ``rested not only on common sense--on what any parent knows--but on science and social science as well.''

This bill is not only cruel, but counterproductive too. Most incarcerated people return home. The evidence shows that a minor charged as an adult is more likely to reoffend and be violent after release than a minor charged as a juvenile.

D.C. residents have all the obligations of American citizenship, including paying Federal taxes, serving on juries, and registering with the Selective Service, yet Congress denies them full local self- government and voting representation in Congress.

The only solution to this undemocratic treatment is to grant D.C. statehood.

Mr. Speaker, I enter into the Record a letter explaining why the D.C. statehood bill is constitutional from leading constitutional scholars, including Larry Tribe.

May 22, 2021.

Re Washington, D.C. Admission Act, H.R. 51 and S.51 (the

``D.C. Admission Act'')

Hon. Nancy P. Pelosi,

Speaker of the House,

House of Representatives, Washington, DC.

Hon. Kevin O. McCarthy,

Minority Leader,

U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Hon. Charles E. Schumer,

Majority Leader,

U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Hon. Mitch McConnell,

Minority Leader,

U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.

Dear Congressional Leaders: As scholars of the United

States Constitution, we write to correct claims that the D.C.

Admission Act is vulnerable to a constitutional challenge in

the courts. For the reasons set forth below, there is no

constitutional barrier to the State of Washington, Douglass

Commonwealth (the ``Commonwealth'') entering the Union

through a congressional joint resolution, pursuant to the

Constitution's Admissions Clause, just like the 37 other

states that have been admitted since the Constitution was

adopted. Furthermore, Congress's exercise of its express

constitutional authority to decide to admit a new state is a

classic political question, which courts are highly unlikely

to interfere with, let alone attempt to bar.

The D.C. Admission Act. The House passed the Act, as H.R.

51, on April 22, 2021, and as of this writing, the

substantively identical companion bill (S.51) is under

consideration by the Senate. The Act provides for the

issuance of a congressional joint resolution declaring the

admittance as a State of most of the territory currently

comprising the District of Columbia, while the seat of

government (defined as the ``Capital'') will fall outside of

the boundaries of the new State and remain under federal

jurisdiction. The Act also repeals the provision of federal

law that establishes the current mechanism for District

residents to participate in presidential elections, pursuant

to Congress's authority under the Twenty-Third Amendment; and

provides for expedited consideration of the repeal of that

Amendment.

The Admissions Clause grants Congress constitutional

authority to admit the Commonwealth into the Union. The

starting

point for a constitutional analysis of the Act is the

Constitution's Admissions Clause (Art. IV, Sect. 3), which

provides that ``New States may be admitted by the Congress

into this Union.'' The Clause ``vests in Congress the

essential and discretionary authority to admit new states

into the Union by whatever means it considers appropriate as

long as such means are framed within its vested powers.''

Every State admitted into the Union since the Constitution

was adopted has been admitted by congressional action

pursuant to this Clause; no State has been admitted pursuant

to a constitutional amendment.

The Supreme Court has broadly construed Congress's assigned

power to admit new states and has never interfered with

Congress's admission of a state, even when potentially

legitimate constitutional objections existed. For example, in

1863, Congress admitted into the Union West Virginia, which

had been part of the State of Virginia, in potential

violation of a provision of the Admissions Clause that bars

the formation of a new State out of a portion of the

territory of another State without the consent of the ceding

State. The Supreme Court, however, did not bar West

Virginia's admission; to the contrary, it later tacitly

approved of it.

Some critics of the D.C. Admission Act have suggested that

Maryland's consent might be required under the foregoing

provision of the Admissions Clause. This objection mistakenly

presupposes that Maryland retains a reversionary interest in

the territory currently composing the District of Columbia,

which Maryland ceded to the federal government when the

District was established in 1791. In fact, Maryland expressly

relinquished all sovereign authority over the territory at

issue when the federal government accepted it. The express

terms of the cession state that the territory was ``for ever

ceded and relinquished to the congress and government of the

United States, in full and absolute right, and exclusive

jurisdiction . . . .'' As Viet D. Dinh, who served as an

Assistant Attorney General during the presidency of George W.

Bush, has explained, because Maryland's cession of the

territory now constituting the District was full and

complete, it severed D.C. residents' now far distant

``political link with'' Maryland. The current District is not

part of Maryland, and Maryland has no claim on any portion of

the District's territory. There is accordingly no basis to

require Maryland's consent for the establishment of the new

State.

The Constitution's District Clause poses no barrier to

admitting the Commonwealth into the Union. The Constitution's

District Clause grants Congress 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.'' Based on this Clause,

Congress established the current District of Columbia, which

(as explained) was taken from territory ceded by Maryland, as

well as Virginia.

The D.C. Admission Act complies with the District Clause

because it provides that the Capital--which is defined in the

Act to include (among other things) the White House, the

Capitol Building, the United States Supreme Court Building,

and the Federal executive, legislative, and judicial office

buildings located adjacent to the Mall--will not become part

of the new State and will remain under the sovereignty of the

federal government.

Some critics have argued that the District Clause somehow

mandates that the District of Columbia permanently retain all

of its current territory, and that its size may neither be

increased or reduced by Congress. The plain language of the

District Clause says no such thing; it does not mandate that

the District be any size or shape, except it limits the

maximum size of the federal enclave to ten square miles.

Historical practice confirms that Congress can change the

size of the District. In 1791 Congress altered the District's

southern boundary to encompass portions of what are now

Alexandria, Virginia and Anacostia. Then, in 1846, Congress

retroceded Alexandria and its environs back to Virginia. As a

result, the territory composing the District was reduced by a

third.

At the time of the 1846 retrocession, the House's Committee

on the District of Columbia considered, and rejected, the

very argument that critics of the D.C. Admission Act are

raising today, reasoning that the ``true construction of [the

District Clause] would seem to be solely that Congress retain

and exercise exclusive jurisdiction'' over territory

comprising the ``seat of government.'' The language of the

District Clause, the legislators observed, places no mandate

on the size, or even the location, of that seat of

government, other than preventing the government from

``hold[ing] more than ten miles for this purpose.'' The

House's judgment was correct in 1846, and remains so today.

The Twenty-Third Amendment does not prevent Congress from

granting the Commonwealth statehood. Opponents of statehood

have suggested that the Twenty-Third Amendment bars Congress

from exercising its constitutionally enumerated authority to

grant statehood to the Commonwealth. In fact, the Amendment

poses no barrier to the admission of the Commonwealth into

the Union through an act of Congress, in accordance with the

plain language of the Admissions Clause, just as Congress has

done in connection with the admission of several other

States, including most recently Alaska and Hawaii.

Section 1 of the Twenty-Third Amendment, which was ratified

in 1961, provides:

The District constituting the seat of Government of the

United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress

may direct: A number of electors of President and Vice

President equal to the whole number of Senators and

Representatives in Congress to which the District would be

entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the

least populous State; they shall be in addition to those

appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for

the purposes of the election of President and Vice President,

to be electors appointed by a State.

By its plain terms, the Amendment poses no barrier to

Congress's admission of the Commonwealth into the Union.

Indeed, it is entirely silent on the matter.

The only question raised by the existence of the Twenty-

Third Amendment is a practical, not a constitutional one: How

best to address the Twenty-Third Amendment's provision for

the assignment of presidential electors to what will become a

vestigial seat of government, with virtually no residents?

The Act satisfactorily addresses this question by providing

for the repeal of the provision of federal law that

establishes the current mechanism for District residents to

participate in presidential elections, pursuant to Congress's

authority under the Twenty-Third Amendment, as well as by

commencing the process for repealing the Amendment itself.

Initially, the Act provides for an expedited process for

repeal of the Twenty-Third Amendment, a process that should

move forward to ratification swiftly and successfully once

the Commonwealth is admitted as a State. None of the other 50

States has reason to seek to retain three electors for a

largely unoccupied seat of government.

But the Act also addresses the possibility that the Twenty-

Third Amendment is not promptly repealed by mandating the

immediate repeal of the provision of federal law that

provides the current mechanism for District residents to

participate in federal elections.

In 1961, following the adoption of the Twenty-Third

Amendment, Congress exercised its enforcement authority by

enacting legislation (codified at 3 U.S.C. Sec. 21),

providing that the District residents may select presidential

electors; the votes of the electors are currently awarded to

the ticket prevailing in the District's presidential

election.

The existing statutes fall within the broad authority

granted to Congress by the Twenty-Third Amendment to define

the terms of, and effectuate, the District's participation in

presidential elections. The Amendment allows for the

appointment of a number of Electors ``in such manner as the

Congress may direct.'' The Amendment also allows Congress to

select the number of Electors the District may receive,

subject only to a maximum: The District may participate in

the presidential Electoral College through the appointment of

no more electors than those of the smallest State, ie.,

three. And section 2 of the Amendment grants Congress the

power to ``enforce'' the provision ``by appropriate

legislation,'' as it did in 1961.

But once Congress acts again, pursuant to its express grant

of constitutional authority, and repeals the legislation that

creates the existing procedure for District residents to

select presidential electors, that will remove the

legislative provision providing for the District's

participation in presidential elections. Without such a

provision, there is no mechanism for identifying the Capital

area's electors or allocating their votes.

Some scholars have questioned whether that approach is

satisfactory. They contend that the Twenty-Third Amendment is

self-enforcing, and effectively mandates the appointment of

electors on behalf of the District of Columbia, regardless of

whether such appointment is called for under a federal

statute. Some of us disagree; indeed, the very existence of

Section 2 of the Amendment makes clear that enabling

legislation is required to effectuate the District's

participation in the presidential election process. And

Congress's 1961 enforcement legislation supports this

interpretation.

Even if this self-enforcement argument were to be accepted,

however, Congress could easily address it by replacing the

current law mandating that the Capital area's electors vote

in accordance with the outcome of the popular vote in the

District with a new legislative mandate that the Capital

area's electors vote in other ways. For example, Congress

could require District electors to vote in favor of the

presidential ticket that receives the most Electoral College

votes (of the remaining 538 electors). Or, alternatively,

Congress could require that District electors vote for the

winner of the national popular vote winner.

A recent Supreme Court decision confirms that a legislative

directive to the Capital area's electors would be

enforceable. The Twenty-Third Amendment provides that the

District ``shall appoint'' electors ``in such manner as

Congress may direct''; this language is a direct parallel to

the Constitution's grant of broad authority to each of the

States to appoint and instruct their respective electors. In

its recent decision in Chiafalo v. Washington. The Supreme

Court held that electors do not have discretion to decide how

to cast their Electoral College votes, but rather are legally

bound to follow

the instructions given by their respective states.

As Columbia Law School Professors Jessica Bulman-Pozen and

Olatunde Johnson have observed, it follows from the Court's

holding in Chiafalo that Congress could legally bind any

electors to vote in accordance with the overall vote of the

Electoral College or the national popular vote, just as the

existing enabling statute currently binds them to vote in the

Electoral College in accordance with the outcome of the

popular vote in the District.

In sum, none of the critics' constitutional objections to

the D.C. Admission Act are meritorious; and the contention

that a constitutional amendment is required to admit the

Commonwealth into the Union is incorrect. The D.C. Admission

Act calls for a proper exercise of Congress' express

authority under the Constitution to admit new states, a power

that it has exercised 37 other times since the Constitution

was adopted.

Courts are unlikely to second-guess Congress's exercise of

its constitutional authority to admit the Commonwealth into

the Union. Apart from the fact that the legal objections to

admission of the Commonwealth as a State are without merit,

it is also unlikely that the courts will ever consider those

objections. As Mr. Dinh has observed, the decision whether to

admit a state into the Union is a paradigmatic political

question that the Constitution expressly and exclusively

assigns to Congress. The Supreme Court has long, and

strenuously, avoided adjudicating disputes respecting matters

that the Constitution makes the sole responsibility of the

coordinate, elected branches.

The remaining objections to Statehood do not concern

applicable constitutional law, but rather matters of policy.

For example, some have argued that the District should not

be admitted to the Union because it is a single city and have

instead proposed that most of the District's territory be

retrocessioned to Maryland. There is, however, no

constitutional barrier to a large, diverse city, with a

population comparable to that of several existing States,

joining the Union. Furthermore, the Maryland retrocession

proposal is subject to many of the same supposed

constitutional objections raised by those who object to

statehood for the District. For example, retroceding the

District to Maryland would decrease the size of the remaining

federal enclave, which objectors to District Statehood have

claimed is constitutionally impermissible. A forced merger of

the District and Maryland would also do nothing to address

the purported constitutional objection to leaving the

residual seat of government with three potential electors,

pursuant to the terms of the Twenty-Third Amendment, prior to

the Amendment's repeal.

Opponents also argue that Congress should not grant the

District statehood because it will lead to a lawsuit. But any

court challenge will be without merit, and indeed likely will

be dismissed as presenting a political question. We

respectfully submit that Congress should not avoid exercising

its express constitutional authority to admit the

Commonwealth into the Union because of meritless threats of

litigation.

Sincerely yours,

Caroline Fredrickson, Georgetown University Law Center;

Erwin Chemerinsky, University of California, Berkeley School

of Law; Stephen I. Vladeck, University of Texas Law School;

Franita Tolson, University of Southern California, Gould

School of Law; Jessica Bulman-Pozen, Columbia Law School;

Leah Litman, University of Michigan Law School; Laurence H.

Tribe, Harvard Law School; Paul Smith, Georgetown University

Law Center; Geoffrey R. Stone, University of Chicago Law

School; Peter Edelman, Georgetown University Law Center.

Kermit Roosevelt, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law

School; Eric Segall, Georgia State College of Law; Trevor

Potter, Campaign Legal Center; Gregory P. Downs, University

of California, Davis; Larry Sabato, University of Virginia;

Aziz Huq, University of Chicago Law School; Jennifer

Hochschild, Harvard University; Neil S. Siegel, Duke

University School of Law; Beau Breslin, Skidmore College;

David C. Vladeck, Georgetown University Law Center; Sanford

Levinson, University of Texas at Austin School of Law; Ira C.

Lupu, George Washington University Law School; Peter M.

Shane, Ohio State University Moritz College of Law; Ira P.

Robbins, American University Washington College of Law;

Michael Greenberger, University of Maryland Francis King

Carey School of Law.

David Pozen, Columbia Law School; Mark Tushnet, Harvard Law

School; Michael C. Dorf, Cornell Law School; Miguel Schor,

Drake University School of Law; David S. Schwartz, University

of Wisconsin Law School; Caroline Mala Corbin, University of

Miami School of Law; Jonathan Askin, Brooklyn Law School;

Aziz Rana, Cornell Law School; John Mikhail, Georgetown

University Law Center; Richard Ford, Stanford Law School;

Richard Primus, University of Michigan Law School; Joseph

Fishkin, University of Texas Law School; Kate Masur,

Northwestern University; Chris Edelson, American University.

The D.C. statehood bill, H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, grants D.C. residents full local self-government and voting representation in Congress. H.R. 51 reduces the size of the Federal District from 68 square miles to 2 square miles, consisting of the White House, the Capitol, the Supreme Court, and the National Mall and remaining under the control of Congress.

The new State consists of the residential and commercial areas of D.C. The new State has a larger population than two States, pays more Federal taxes per capita than any State, and pays more total Federal taxes than 21 States.

Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to vote ``no'' on H.R. 5140, keep their hands off D.C. and free D.C.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I strongly oppose this undemocratic and paternalistic bill, which amends D.C. law. The over 700,000 D.C. residents, the majority of whom are Black and Brown, are capable and worthy of governing themselves.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record letters opposing this bill from D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, the entire D.C. Council, and D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb.

September 10, 2025.

Hon. James Comer,

Chairman, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Robert Garcia,

Ranking Member, House Committee on Oversight and Government

Reform, Washington, DC.

Dear Chairman Comer and Ranking Member Garcia: As Mayor and

Chief Executive Officer of the District of Columbia, I am

proud of the work we have accomplished to invest in our

people, strengthen our neighborhoods, and drive down crime.

Building on this progress, my Administration established the

Safe and Beautiful Emergency Operations Center to coordinate

public safety and beautification efforts as the presidential

emergency declaration ends. This structure ensures that DC

will remain proactive--bringing together local and federal

partners to sustain momentum on reducing crime and improving

quality of life for every resident.

We have worked collaboratively with this Committee on

shared priorities, including public safety, the federal

Return to Work, implementing a DC budget Fiscal Year 2025 fix

(which is still pending in the House) and revitalizing the

RFK campus; but I write now to ask you to reject 13 of the DC

bills before you today that encroach on DC's Home Rule:

Bills like H.R. 5183, the District of Columbia Home Rule

Improvement Act, make the District less efficient,

competitive, and responsive to the needs of a highly complex

unique local government that serves local, county and state

functions. Bogging down legislative and executive action only

adds costs and uncertainty, making it more difficult to

handle the economic headwinds and growth opportunities ahead.

Bills like H.R. 5214, the District of Columbia Cash Bail

Reform Act, make DC less safe. Replacing our very effective

pre-trial detention regime, which focuses on charged violent

offenses and repeat violent offenders, not just on cash bail.

I credit recent changes to our laws related to pre-trial

detention for helping to drive down violent crime in the last

two years.

And the bills to abolish the Judicial Nominations

Commission and to convert the elected DC Attorney General to

a Presidentially appointed legal officer for the District are

both less democratic and untenable for District operations.

The Judicial Nomination Commission, with seven members

appointed by the Mayor, DC Council, President, US District

Court for DC, and the DC Bar, works. As recently as last

month, President Trump nominated three federal judicial

nominees who were selected from the Commission's candidate

pool--a process that demonstrates the value of maintaining

local input. DC residents also voted to elect an Attorney

General who represents the public interest. Changes to these

charter agencies would significantly undercut the already

thin ties to autonomy that limited home rule provides.

Finally, I urge you not to up end our three-part education

funding SOAR Act. I have long supported the program to expand

opportunity for DC students. However, my support has always

been contingent on parity among all three education sectors--

public, private, and charter--and this approach is working.

We will not support changes that tip the scales away from

this core principle of fairness for DC families. As the

fastest improving urban school system, DC has become a model

for urban education. We outpace the national average on all

tested subject areas. We boast free, full-day Pre-K access

serving more than 13,200 young learners--an investment which

supports our children and our workforce. DC ranked top of the

nation in parental satisfaction regarding school choice.

Mayoral control, council oversight, and deep, targeted

investments in our students, teachers, and buildings made

these remarkable achievements possible.

I look forward to continuing a productive partnership with

the Committee--one that respects the will of DC residents and

honors the principles of home rule. Together, we can build on

our successes while protecting the autonomy that, as history

reflects, has made our city stronger.

Sincerely,

Muriel Bowser,

Mayor.

Mr. Speaker, the local legislature, the Council, has 13 members. If D.C. residents do not like how members vote, residents can vote them out of office or pass a ballot measure. That is called democracy.

Congress has 535 voting Members. None are elected by D.C. residents. If D.C. residents do not like how Members vote on local D.C. matters, residents cannot vote them out of office or pass a ballot measure. That is the antithesis of democracy.

The substance of this bill should be irrelevant since there is never justification for Congress to legislate on local D.C. matters. Nevertheless, I will discuss it.

Republicans claim D.C.'s Youth Rehabilitation Act treats adults as juveniles. They are wrong. They either do not understand the act or are misleading the public about it intentionally. The act's sentencing and set aside provisions apply only in adult court, not juvenile court.

Let me repeat: The provisions apply in adult court, not juvenile court. A judge may, but is not required to, sentence a person under the act, and certain crimes are ineligible under the act.

D.C. is not the only jurisdiction with a so-called young adult offender law. Alabama, Florida, Michigan, New York, South Carolina, and Vermont have such laws. The sponsor of this bill is from one of those States.

D.C. residents have all the obligations of American citizenship, including paying Federal taxes, serving on juries, and registering with the Selective Service, yet Congress denies them full local self- government and voting representation in Congress. The only solution to this undemocratic treatment is to grant D.C. statehood.

Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record a letter explaining why D.C. statehood is constitutional from leading constitutional scholars, including Larry Tribe.

May 22, 2021.

Re Washington, D.C. Admission Act, H.R. 51 and S. 51 (the

``D.C. Admission Act'').

Hon. Nancy P. Pelosi,

Speaker of the House, House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Charles E. Schumer,

Majority Leader, U.S. Senate,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Kevin O. McCarthy,

Minority Leader, U.S. Senate,

Washington, DC.

Hon. Mitch McConnell,

Minority Leader, U.S. Senate,

Washington, DC.

Dear Congressional Leaders: As scholars of the United

States Constitution, we write to correct claims that the D.C.

Admission Act is vulnerable to a constitutional challenge in

the courts. For the reasons set forth below, there is no

constitutional barrier to the State of Washington, Douglass

Commonwealth (the ``Commonwealth'') entering the Union

through a congressional joint resolution, pursuant to the

Constitution's Admissions Clause, just like the 37 other

states that have been admitted since the Constitution was

adopted. Furthermore, Congress's exercise of its express

constitutional authority to decide to admit a new state is a

classic political question, which courts are highly unlikely

to interfere with, let alone attempt to bar.

The D.C. Admission Act. The House passed the Act, as H.R.

51, on April 22, 2021, and as of this writing, the

substantively identical companion bill (S. 51) is under

consideration by the Senate. The Act provides for the

issuance of a congressional joint resolution declaring the

admittance as a State of most of the territory currently

comprising the District of Columbia, while the seat of

government (defined as the ``Capital'') will fall outside of

the boundaries of the new State and remain under federal

jurisdiction. The Act also repeals the provision of federal

law that establishes the current mechanism for District

residents to participate in presidential elections, pursuant

to Congress's authority under the Twenty-Third Amendment; and

provides for expedited consideration of the repeal of that

Amendment.

The Admissions Clause grants Congress constitutional

authority to admit the Commonwealth into the Union. The

starting point for a constitutional analysis of the Act is

the Constitution's Admissions Clause (Art. IV, Sect. 3),

which provides that ``New States may be admitted by the

Congress into this Union.'' The Clause ``vests in Congress

the essential and discretionary authority to admit new states

into the Union by whatever means it considers appropriate as

long as such means are framed within its vested powers.''

Every State admitted into the Union since the Constitution

was adopted has been admitted by congressional action

pursuant to this Clause; no State has been admitted pursuant

to a constitutional amendment.

The Supreme Court has broadly construed Congress's assigned

power to admit new states and has never interfered with

Congress's admission of a state, even when potentially

legitimate constitutional objections existed. For example, in

1863, Congress admitted into the Union West Virginia, which

had been part of the State of Virginia, in potential

violation of a provision of the Admissions Clause that bars

the formation of a new State out of a portion of the

territory of another State without the consent of the ceding

State. The Supreme Court, however, did not bar West

Virginia's admission; to the contrary, it later tacitly

approved of it.

Some critics of the D.C. Admission Act have suggested that

Maryland's consent might be required under the foregoing

provision of the Admissions Clause. This objection mistakenly

presupposes that Maryland retains a reversionary interest in

the territory currently composing the District of Columbia,

which Maryland ceded to the federal government when the

District was established in 1791. In fact, Maryland expressly

relinquished all sovereign authority over the territory at

issue when the federal government accepted it. The express

terms of the cession state that the territory was ``for ever

ceded and relinquished to the congress and government of the

United States, in full and absolute right, and exclusive

jurisdiction.

. . . As Viet D. Dinh, who served as an Assistant Attorney

General during the presidency of George W. Bush, has

explained, because Maryland's cession of the territory now

constituting the District was full and complete, it severed

D.C. residents' now far distant ``political link with''

Maryland. The current District is not part of Maryland, and

Maryland has no claim on any portion of the District's

territory. There is accordingly no basis to require

Maryland's consent for the establishment of the new State.

The Constitution's District Clause poses no barrier to

admitting the Commonwealth into the Union. The Constitution's

District Clause grants Congress 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.'' Based on this Clause,

Congress established the current District of Columbia, which

(as explained) was taken from territory ceded by Maryland, as

well as Virginia.

The D.C. Admission Act complies with the District Clause

because it provides that the Capital--which is defined in the

Act to include (among other things) the White House, the

Capitol Building, the United States Supreme Court Building,

and the Federal executive, legislative, and judicial office

buildings located adjacent to the Mall--will not become part

of the new State and will remain under the sovereignty of the

federal government.

Some critics have argued that the District Clause somehow

mandates that the District of Columbia permanently retain all

of its current territory, and that its size may neither be

increased or reduced by Congress. The plain language of the

District Clause says no such thing; it does not mandate that

the District be any size or shape, except it limits the

maximum size of the federal enclave to ten square miles.

Historical practice confirms that Congress can change the

size of the District. In 1791, Congress altered the

District's southern boundary to encompass portions of what

are now Alexandria, Virginia and Anacostia. Then, in 1846,

Congress retroceded Alexandria and its environs back to

Virginia. As a result, the territory composing the District

was reduced by a third.

At the time of the 1846 retrocession, the House's Committee

on the District of Columbia considered, and rejected, the

very argument that critics of the D.C. Admission Act are

raising today, reasoning that the ``true construction of [the

District Clause] would seem to be solely that Congress retain

and exercise exclusive jurisdiction'' over territory

comprising the ``seat of government.'' The language of the

District Clause, the legislators observed, places no mandate

on the size, or even the location, of that seat of

government, other than preventing the government from

``hold[ing] more than ten miles for this purpose.'' The

House's judgment was correct in 1846, and remains so today.

The Twenty-Third Amendment does not prevent Congress from

granting the Commonwealth statehood. Opponents of statehood

have suggested that the Twenty-Third Amendment bars Congress

from exercising its constitutionally enumerated authority to

grant statehood to the Commonwealth. In fact, the Amendment

poses no barrier to the admission of the Commonwealth into

the Union through an act of Congress, in accordance with the

plain language of the Admissions Clause, just as Congress has

done in connection with the admission of several other

States, including most recently Alaska and Hawaii.

Section 1 of the Twenty-Third Amendment, which was ratified

in 1961, provides:

The District constituting the seat of Government of the

United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress

may direct: A number of electors of President and Vice

President equal to the whole number of Senators and

Representatives in Congress to which the District would be

entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the

least populous State; they shall be in addition to those

appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for

the purposes of the election of President and Vice President,

to be electors appointed by a State.

By its plain terms, the Amendment poses no barrier to

Congress's admission of the Commonwealth into the Union.

Indeed, it is entirely silent on the matter.

The only question raised by the existence of the Twenty-

Third Amendment is a practical, not a constitutional one: How

best to address the Twenty-Third Amendment's provision for

the assignment of presidential electors to what will become a

vestigial seat of government, with virtually no residents?

The Act satisfactorily addresses this question by providing

for the repeal of the provision of federal law that

establishes the current mechanism for District residents to

participate in presidential elections, pursuant to Congress's

authority under the Twenty-Third Amendment, as well as by

commencing the process for repealing the Amendment itself.

Initially, the Act provides for an expedited process for

repeal of the Twenty-Third Amendment, a process that should

move forward to ratification swiftly and successfully once

the Commonwealth is admitted as a State. None of the other 50

States has reason to seek to retain three electors for a

largely unoccupied seat of government.

But the Act also addresses the possibility that the Twenty-

Third Amendment is not promptly repealed by mandating the

immediate repeal of the provision of federal law that

provides the current mechanism for District residents to

participate in federal elections.

In 1961, following the adoption of the Twenty-Third

Amendment, Congress exercised its enforcement authority by

enacting legislation (codified at 3 U.S.C. Sec. 21),

providing that the District residents may select presidential

electors; the votes of the electors are currently awarded to

the ticket prevailing in the District's presidential

election.

The existing statutes, fall within the broad authority

granted to Congress by the Twenty-Third Amendment to define

the terms of, and effectuate, the District's participation in

presidential elections. The Amendment allows for the

appointment of a number of Electors ``in such manner as the

Congress may direct.'' The Amendment also allows Congress to

select the number of Electors the District may receive,

subject only to a maximum: The District may participate in

the presidential Electoral College through the appointment of

no more electors than those of the smallest State, ie.,

three. And section 2 of the Amendment grants Congress the

power to ``enforce'' the provision ``by appropriate

legislation,'' as it did in 1961.

But once Congress acts again, pursuant to its express grant

of constitutional authority, and repeals the legislation that

creates the existing procedure for District residents to

select presidential electors, that will remove the

legislative provision providing for the District's

participation in presidential elections. Without such a

provision, there is no mechanism for identifying the Capital

area's electors or allocating their votes.

Some scholars have questioned whether that approach is

satisfactory. They contend that the Twenty-Third Amendment is

self-enforcing, and effectively mandates the appointment of

electors on behalf of the District of Columbia, regardless of

whether such appointment is called for under a federal

statute. Some of us disagree; indeed, the very existence of

Section 2 of the Amendment makes clear that enabling

legislation is required to effectuate the District's

participation in the presidential election process. And

Congress's 1961 enforcement legislation supports this

interpretation.

Even if this self-enforcement argument were to be accepted,

however, Congress could easily address it by replacing the

current law mandating that the Capital area's electors vote

in accordance with the outcome of the popular vote in the

District with a new legislative mandate that the Capital

area's electors vote in other ways. For example, Congress

could require District electors to vote in favor of the

presidential ticket that receives the most Electoral College

votes (of the remaining 538 electors). Or, alternatively,

Congress could require that District electors vote for the

winner of the national popular vote winner.

A recent Supreme Court decision confirms that a legislative

directive to the Capital area's electors would be

enforceable. The Twenty-Third Amendment provides that the

District ``shall appoint'' electors ``in such manner as

Congress may direct''; this language is a direct parallel to

the Constitution's grant of broad authority to each of the

States to appoint and instruct their respective electors. In

its recent decision in Chiafalo v. Washington, the Supreme

Court held that electors do not have discretion to decide how

to cast their Electoral College votes, but rather are legally

bound to follow the instructions given by their respective

states.

As Columbia Law School Professors Jessica Bulman-Pozen and

Olatunde Johnson have observed, it follows from the Court's

holding in Chiafalo that Congress could legally bind any

electors to vote in accordance with the overall vote of the

Electoral College or the national popular vote, just as the

existing enabling statute currently binds them to vote in the

Electoral College in accordance with the outcome of the

popular vote in the District.

In sum, none of the critics' constitutional objections to

the D.C. Admission Act are meritorious; and the contention

that a constitutional amendment is required to admit the

Commonwealth into the Union is incorrect. The D.C. Admission

Act calls for a proper exercise of Congress' express

authority under the Constitution to admit new states, a power

that it has exercised 37 other times since the Constitution

was adopted.

Courts are unlikely to second-guess Congress's exercise of

its constitutional authority to admit the Commonwealth into

the Union. Apart from the fact that the legal objections to

admission of the Commonwealth as a State are without merit,

it is also unlikely that the courts will ever consider those

objections. As Mr. Dinh has observed, the decision whether to

admit a state into the Union is a paradigmatic political

question that the Constitution expressly and exclusively

assigns to Congress. The Supreme Court has long, and

strenuously, avoided adjudicating disputes respecting matters

that the Constitution makes the sole responsibility of the

coordinate, elected branches.

The remaining objections to Statehood do not concern

applicable constitutional law, but rather matters of policy.

For example, some have argued that the District should not

be admitted to the Union because it is a single city and have

instead proposed that most of the District's territory be

retrocessioned to Maryland. There is, however, no

constitutional barrier to a large, diverse city, with a

population comparable

to that of several existing States, joining the Union.

Furthermore, the Maryland retrocession proposal is subject to

many of the same supposed constitutional objections raised by

those who object to statehood for the District. For example,

retroceding the District to Maryland would decrease the size

of the remaining federal enclave, which objectors to District

Statehood have claimed is constitutionally impermissible. A

forced merger of the District and Maryland would also do

nothing to address the purported constitutional objection to

leaving the residual seat of government with three potential

electors, pursuant to the terms of the Twenty-Third

Amendment, prior to the Amendment's repeal.

Opponents also argue that Congress should not grant the

District statehood because it will lead to a lawsuit. But any

court challenge will be without merit, and indeed likely will

be dismissed as presenting a political question. We

respectfully submit that Congress should not avoid exercising

its express constitutional authority to admit the

Commonwealth into the Union because of meritless threats of

litigation.

Sincerely yours,

Caroline Fredrickson, Georgetown University Law Center;

Erwin Chemerinsky, University of California, Berkeley School

of Law; Stephen I. Vladeck, University of Texas Law School;

Franita Tolson, University of Southern California, Gould

School of Law; Jessica Bulman-Pozen, Columbia Law School;

Leah Litman, University of Michigan Law School; Laurence H.

Tribe, Harvard Law School; Paul Smith, Georgetown University

Law Center; Geoffrey R. Stone, University of Chicago Law

School; Peter Edelman, Georgetown University Law Center,

Kermit Roosevelt, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law

School; Eric Segall, Georgia State College Law; Trevor

Potter, Campaign Legal Center; Gregory P. Downs, University

of California Davis; Larry Sabato, University of Virginia;

Aziz Huq, University of Chicago Law School; Jennifer

Hochschild, Harvard University; Neil S. Siegel, Duke

University School of Law; Beau Breslin, Skidmore College;

David C. Vladeck, Georgetown University Law Center; Sanford

Levinson, University of Texas at Austin School of Law; Ira C.

Lupu, George Washington University Law School; Peter M.

Shane, Ohio State University Moritz College of Law; Ira P.

Robbins, American University Washington College of Law;

Michael Greenberger, University of Maryland Francis King

Carey School of Law.

David Pozen, Columbia Law School; Mark Tushnet, Harvard Law

School; Michael C. Dorf, Cornell Law School; Miguel Schor,

Drake University School of Law; David S. Schwartz, University

of Wisconsin Law School; Caroline Mala Corbin, University of

Miami School of Law; Jonathan Askin, Brooklyn Law School;

Aziz Rana, Cornell Law School; John Mikhail, Georgetown

University Law Center; Richard Ford, Stanford Law School;

Richard Primus, University of Michigan Law School; Joseph

Fishkin, University of Texas Law School; Kate Masur,

Northwestern University; Chris Edelson, American University.

Mr. Speaker, the D.C. statehood bill, H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, grants D.C. residents full local self- government and voting representation in Congress. H.R. 51 reduces the size of the Federal district from 68 square miles to 2 square miles, consisting of the White House, Capitol, the Supreme Court, and The National Mall and remaining under the control of Congress. The new State consists of the residential and commercial areas of D.C. The new State has a larger population than two States, pays more Federal taxes per capita than any State, and pays more total Federal taxes than 21 States.

Mr. Speaker, I urge Members to vote ``no'' on the D.C. CRIMES Act, keep their hands off D.C. and free D.C.

Mr. Speaker, today, the House of Representatives debated the Common-Sense Law Enforcement and Accountability Now in DC Act of 2025 (H.R. 5107) and the District of Columbia Cash Bail Reform Act of 2025 (H.R. 5214). I include in the Record a letter opposing these bills by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Southern Poverty Law Center,

Montgomery, AL, November 18, 2025.

Vote NO on H.R. 5107 and H.R. 5214

Dear Representative: On behalf of the Southern Poverty Law

Center, a civil rights organization committed to advancing

racial justice, public safety, and democratic accountability,

we write to urge you to vote NO on two deeply harmful bills--

H.R. 5107 and H.R. 5214--that together constitute a direct

assault on the District of Columbia's right to self-govern

and on decades of evidence-based progress in public safety.

Far from addressing genuine community needs, these proposals

would drag the District backward into punitive ``tough on

crime'' strategies that have already devastated Black and

Brown communities nationwide while failing to make anyone

safer.

Further criminalization and incarceration are not the

answer to complex societal challenges rooted in poverty,

inequality, and disinvestment. True public safety comes not

from harsh punishment, but from transforming the criminal

legal system, investing in community-based supports, and

reimagining safety in ways that are fair, effective, and

rooted in public health. The District's recent reforms--

including the accountability measures strengthened under the

Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Amendment Act of

2022, which H.R. 5107 seeks to overturn, and its long-

standing risk-based pretrial system, which H.R. 5214 would

upend--reflect precisely this kind of thoughtful, data-driven

policymaking. These reforms enjoy broad public support, align

with national best practices, and have contributed to

meaningful gains: D.C.'s crime rate is now the lowest it has

been in 30 years, and violent crime fell 35 percent from 2023

to 2024.

These achievements were not accidental. They are the result

of decades of community organizing, research-informed policy,

and consistent engagement with impacted residents. They

reflect a growing national consensus that smart, preventative

investments are more effective than reactionary

criminalization--and they save taxpayer dollars by shifting

scarce resources away from mass incarceration and toward

education, housing, mental health, and violence prevention.

H.R. 5107 and H.R. 5214 would undo this progress. By

stripping away essential police accountability measures and

re-imposing wealth-based pretrial detention, these bills

would re-entrench systems that have already been proven

ineffective, discriminatory, and fiscally irresponsible. They

would override the will of D.C. residents, destabilize

communities, and reinstate practices that make the District

less safe.

The residents of Washington, D.C., like those of any other

jurisdiction, deserve the right to elect leaders who

determine their own laws, public safety policies, and budget.

Yet these bills, introduced under the guise of improving

safety, are part of a broader political effort to impose

ideologically driven federal control on Black-led cities and

to roll back successful reforms through fear-based narratives

about ``law and order.'' This is not about safety; it is

about weaponizing federal power to score political points and

undermine civil rights protections. An administration that

truly cared about public safety would not have rescinded

hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants for gun

violence prevention, victim services, and community-based

safety programs.

We urge Congress to reject these attacks on D.C.'s

autonomy. Allowing such federal overreach would set a

dangerous precedent for undermining local governance

nationwide, particularly in jurisdictions with progressive or

Black leadership. This fight is not just about the District

of Columbia, it is about protecting democracy, equity, and

self-determination in communities across the country.

Vote NO on H.R. 5214--``District of Columbia Cash Bail Reform

Act of 2025''

This bill seeks to do two things: create a list of offenses

for which a person must be detained for the entire pretrial

period based solely on what they were charged with, without

regard for the particular circumstances and without providing

due process; and create a list of offenses for which a person

must pay money in order to be released from pretrial

detention, even if they do not pose a risk to public safety

or a risk of flight. This bill would create a wealth-based,

two-tiered system of justice that benefits the multibillion-

dollar for-profit bail industry, all without improving public

safety.

Money bail creates a two-tiered system of justice without

protecting public safety

Money bail has created a two-tiered justice system--one

that privileges wealth over safety. It allows people with

money to purchase their freedom regardless of the risk they

pose to others, while those without financial means remain

jailed even when they present no threat This system doesn't

ask whether someone is dangerous; it only asks whether they

can pay. The result is a system where wealth, not justice,

determines who waits for trial at home and who waits behind

bars.

By setting a price on freedom, cash bail effectively

divides our justice system into two: one for the wealthy and

one for everyone else. Those who can afford bail walk free;

those who cannot are punished for their poverty without even

having been convicted of anything. Beyond being fundamentally

unfair, this practice undermines public safety. Pretrial

detention destabilizes lives--causing people to lose their

jobs, homes, or even custody of their children. Research

shows that the likelihood of a future arrest jumps from 24

percent after one day in jail to 45 percent after three days,

proof that unnecessary detention fuels instability and

recidivism. When someone cannot afford bail, they can sit in

jail for days, months, or even years without a conviction.

That is not justice--it is punishment for being poor.

Jurisdictions that have reformed their bail practices have

been successful

Every person deserves to live in a community that is safe,

fair, and just. Bail reform advances that goal by ensuring

that decisions about pretrial detention are based on public

safety--not on a person's wealth. Across the country, study

after study has proven that jurisdictions that have reformed

or eliminated cash bail have made their systems fairer

without increasing crime. Judges

who focus on safety rather than money make decisions that

better protect both individuals and their communities.

The results speak for themselves. After Illinois eliminated

cash bail, violent crime dropped by 7 percent and property

crime by 14 percent. New Jersey's reforms led to a 20 percent

reduction in violent crime while maintaining high court

appearance rates. In Harris County, Texas, ending cash bail

for most misdemeanors did not increase crime. A nationwide

study by the Brennan Center for Justice found the same

pattern across nearly two dozen jurisdictions: bail reform

does not lead to higher crime. The data is consistent and

compelling--bail reform enhances justice and preserves

safety, despite fearmongering from its opponents.

D.C.'s risk-based bail system has served as a national model

since 1992

For more than three decades, Washington, D.C. has shown

that a justice system without cash bail can work, and work

well. Since 1992, judges in D.C. have made pretrial decisions

based on a person's risk to public safety rather than their

ability to pay. The outcomes are impressive: in the last four

years, 88 percent of people released pretrial in D.C.

remained completely arrest-free, and 98 percent remained free

from arrest for violent offenses. These numbers demonstrate

that when freedom is tied to fairness, not finances,

communities are safer and more stable.

Under D.C.'s system, judges assess risk through evidence-

based hearings. Detention is used only when no safe

alternative exists, ensuring that pretrial incarceration is a

rare and deliberate outcome--not the default. D.C. also

invests in supportive pretrial services such as court date

reminders, transportation assistance, and access to mental

health care. These measures help people appear in court and

stay on track, strengthening both accountability and public

safety. Transparent hearings and timely decisions make the

process fair, fast, and equitable--showing that justice does

not have to come at the expense of compassion.

Mandatory cash bail only benefits the multibillion-dollar

for-profit bail industry

Mandatory cash bail doesn't protect communities--it

protects profits. The effort to roll back bail reform is a

handout to the for-profit bail industry, which thrives on the

desperation of working families. Bail bonds function like

predatory payday loans: families must pay a nonrefundable fee

to a bail bondsman, money they never get back--even if

charges are dropped. This $2 billion-a-year industry depends

entirely on maintaining cash bail, because without it, its

exploitative business model collapses.

The bail industry has built a powerful political machine to

protect its profits. The American Bail Coalition, its chief

lobbying group, spends millions to oppose reform efforts

across the country. It has partnered with well-funded

conservative organizations to push legislation that

criminalizes charitable bail funds--programs that help

families avoid these predatory practices. In short, mandatory

cash bail enriches a few at the expense of justice, safety,

and the public good. Congress should not allow corporate

greed to dictate who sits in jail and who walks free.

Mandatory pretrial detention based on charge alone violates

the Constitution

The proposed bill's provision requiring automatic pretrial

detention based solely on the charge is not only unjust--it

is almost certainly unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court

made this clear in United States v. Salerno, holding that

pretrial detention must be a ``carefully limited exception,''

not the rule. Detaining someone without an individualized

hearing strips them of due process and violates one of our

most fundamental constitutional rights: the presumption of

innocence. Liberty cannot be taken away solely based on

accusation, without more.

We are not aware of a single jurisdiction in the country

that allows detention based solely on the nature of the

charge, and for good reason--it would not withstand

constitutional scrutiny. This bill would set a dangerous

precedent, eroding basic civil liberties and undermining

decades of legal precedent that protect fairness in our

criminal justice system.

Vote NO on H.R. 5107--``The Common Sense Law Enforcement and

Accountability in D.C. Now Act''

Congress should reject H.R. 5107 because it would override

critical public-safety reforms adopted unanimously by the

District of Columbia Council in the Comprehensive Policing

and Justice Reform Amendment Act of 2022--reforms designed to

hold officers accountable, improve transparency, and

strengthen community trust. These are not abstract ideals;

they were enacted in response to concrete, well-documented

failures within the Metropolitan Police Department.

The D.C. reforms were necessary to hold officers accountable

for serious misconduct

Before the Act, D.C. had no effective mechanism to remove

officers who engaged in egregious criminal behavior. A 2021

audit revealed that at least 64 officers were found by

internal investigators to have committed criminal misconduct.

The department attempted to fire 24 of those officers--but 21

were shielded by procedural barriers, often driven by union

intervention. Even more troubling, the department made no

attempt to fire more than 40 officers involved in criminal

conduct such as drunk driving, harassment, property damage,

theft, and stalking. Every officer credibly accused of

domestic violence remained on the force, including one

officer who admitted to punching his wife so hard in the face

that he fractured her eye socket, and another officer who

used a car to run over the mother of his child. Some officers

remain on the force due to the powerful police union's

refusal to allow officers to be held accountable. This was

true for a D.C. officer who, ultimately, remained on the

force after having been convicted of sexually assaulting a

woman in his patrol car.

The Act responded to these failures by streamlining the

process for removing officers who commit serious misconduct

and by prohibiting agencies from hiring officers with known

records of abuse. It also established a police-misconduct

database to prevent the well-documented problem of

``wandering officers''--individuals fired or forced out for

misconduct who quietly move to new departments. States like

Florida and Texas have documented hundreds to thousands of

such cases annually. There are almost 1,100 wandering

officers in any given year in Florida; in Texas, about a

quarter of law enforcement officers fired for misconduct were

subsequently hired by another law enforcement agency.

Weakening the Act would mean turning a blind eye to the

recycling of abusive officers. Databases to keep track of

officer misconduct help law enforcement agencies avoid

unknowingly hiring an officer with documented behavioral

problems.

The Act includes essential safeguards to address excessive

use of force

D.C. law enforcement reports roughly 2,300 use-of-force

incidents every year--a number that demands oversight,

especially since a small group of officers account for a

disproportionate share of these incidents. Eighty-six

officers reported five or more uses of force, and 17 reported

at least 10. Use of force overwhelmingly targets Black

residents, who are the subjects in roughly 94% of documented

incidents. Importantly, these numbers reflect only cases

officers self-reported, meaning the true numbers are likely

far higher.

To confront these issues, the Act created a Use of Force

Review Board, required robust de-escalation training, and

mandated public release of body-worn camera footage after

shootings and other serious events. Jurisdictions that

release such footage consistently see improved community

trust and enhanced transparency. Body cameras provide an

impartial record, encourage better policing practices, and

allow communities to participate meaningfully in oversight.

These policies do not endanger public safety--they strengthen

it.

Transparency and accountability lead to safer communities

Contrary to fear-based narratives, reforms that require

accountability do not undermine law enforcement; they help

restore public confidence and encourage collaboration between

police and the communities they serve. As the District's

Attorney General has explained, ``the Comprehensive Policing

and Justice Reform Amendment Act is designed to improve

public safety by strengthening cooperation between officers

of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and the community

they serve. This legislation is essential in ensuring the

swift and certain discipline of officers who use excessive

force or violate constitutional rights, which will go far to

improve trust and mutual respect between police officers and

the community.''

By overturning D.C.'s locally enacted reforms, H.R. 5107

would reinstate a system where officers who commit serious

misconduct remain on the force, where excessive use of force

goes unaddressed, and where transparency is weakened.

Congress should respect D.C.'s democratic process, support

evidence-based public-safety measures, and vote NO on H.R.

5107.

In this pivotal moment, Congress has a choice: to respect

the District's democratic will and its proven, evidence-based

approach to public safety, or to impose regressive federal

mandates that endanger civil rights, destabilize communities,

and undermine decades of progress. H.R. 5107 and H.R. 5214

are not solutions--they are setbacks that would weaken

accountability, revive discriminatory practices, and replace

effective reforms with policies long discredited by research

and experience. We urge you to stand with the residents of

Washington, D.C., to uphold the principles of local self-

governance, and to vote NO on these bills. The nation is

watching, and your leadership in defending justice, equity,

and democracy is essential. For more information, please

contact Aiden Cotter, Senior Policy Counsel for Decarceration

and Decriminalization.

Best regards,

LaShawn Warren,

Chief Policy Officer.

Sakira Cook,

Federal Policy Director.