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…
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.