Congressman Louie Gohmert

Most Premeditated Unconstitutional Act by Congress in Decades” May Come to House Floor Next Week

Sunday, April 18, 2010Capitol Press Releases

WASHINGTON, DC - In the 1970s, Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle along with constitutional scholars agreed that the only way to give citizens of Washington, D.C. the ability to vote for a U.S. Representative was to amend the Constitution. Although that effort received the vote of two-thirds of the House and Senate, it did not receive ratification by three-fourths of the States needed to make it part of the Constitution.

Now, Democratic leaders are attempting to do unconstitutionally what they did not do constitutionally 30 years ago. They are hoping to bring a bill to the floor next week that will legislatively skirt the constitutional requirement that Representatives come from the “States.” At a Judiciary hearing regarding Delegate Holmes Norton’s effort, Law Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University called it “the most premeditated unconstitutional act by Congress in decades.”

Washington D.C.’s Democratic Delegate, Walter Fauntroy, respected the boundaries of the Constitution when he stated in 1977 that “we ought to grant to the District residents, what every other citizen has, and that is full voting representation in both Houses. And we ought to do it by constitutional amendment that is straight out on the subject.”  Democratic Chairman Don Edwards from California tried to do that very thing when he got a constitutional amendment to provide D.C. with representation out of the Judiciary Committee in 1978. Chairman Edwards (D-CA) submitted a committee report stating that “a constitutional amendment is essential; statutory action alone will not suffice.”

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton has chosen a different path than her predecessor and has been pushing her District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act that Democratic leaders apparently hope to have on the floor next week.  If it is passed by the Congress and signed by the President, it will almost certainly be found unconstitutional by the courts.  Such an effort to provide D.C. a House member by regular legislation runs headlong into the plain text of Article I Section 2, which states that members of Congress must come from the “States.”

Since Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) agrees with Benjamin Franklin that taxation without representation is unfair, he has attempted to resolve the dilemma by introducing two alternative bills that offer constitutionally-sound solutions. The first measure was inspired by the fact that citizens of every other U.S. territory are not required to pay federal income tax because they are not allowed a Representative with full voting rights under the Constitution. ONLY the District of Columbia residents are required to pay federal income tax without full voting rights in the U.S. House.

Gohmert’s bill, H.R.1014, the No Taxation without Representation Act, would ensure that D.C. residents do not have to pay federal income tax while waiting for the day when congressional representation is provided in a constitutional manner.

Gohmert’s other constitutional alternative is H.R.1015. This bill would draw a boundary line around all of the federal buildings and would cede all of the residential areas back to Maryland.  The state of Maryland would then simply need to accept the property back with the additional population shift that should give Maryland an additional representative.

Gohmert stated, “If a change to the Constitution is to be made to give D.C. representation without altering the character of the city, then it requires an Amendment, not legislation, as all those in Congress pushing for this change acknowledged in the late 1970s.  If the states don’t want an amendment, then the alternative is retrocession. Retrocession is not a new idea; land was ceded back to Virginia in 1846 because the federal government was not using it and citizens living there wanted to vote for a Representative and Senators.  Doing so will allow American citizens in the District to have a representative with a vote in Congress in the near future in a constitutionally permissible method, while also providing Senate representation to current D.C. residents.  As my retrocession bill is considered and implemented, D.C. residents should be exempt from federal income tax.  The proposed constitutional amendment that Congress passed in 1978 fell short of ratification by a sufficient number of states.  It may be incumbent upon Congress to take a different route to remedy the situation, but the Constitution must be respected in the process.”

Rep. Gohmert represents the First District of Texas in the U.S. House of Representatives.