1 2 3 4 5 6 7 21 (B) not be construed to include any area situated outside of the District of Columbia boundary as it ex isted immediately prior to the date of the enactment of Eleventh Street Bridge, or any portion of the Rock HR 325 IH SECTION BY SECTION OUTLINE H. R. 325 A Bill to provide for the admission of the State of SECTION 1 SECTION 2 SECTION 3 SECTION 4 SECTION 5 Short Title - "New Columbia Admission Act." - Sets forth declaration that the State of New Columbia is a State of the United States and is admitted into the Union on an equal basis with all other States. The declaration is conditioned upon the President of the United States issuing a proclamation (provided for in Section 7(d)(1) of this Act) finding that the voters in the District of Columbia have adopted the following propositions (found in Section 7(c)(1) of this Act): (A) That New Columbia shall be admitted (B) That the Boundaries as described in (C) That the provisions of this Act are Provides that the Constitution of New Columbia shall always be Republican in form and not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States. Establishes the boundaries of New Columbia Provides that New Columbia surrenders all SECTION BY SECTION OUTLINE / H.R. 325 rage 2 Provides for the retention of all right and Establishes the election procedures for all The Mayor's proclamation shall provide for The Mayor must also issue a proclamation (which may be a part of the proclamation for elections) submitting to the voters for adoption or rejection, certain propositions (detailed in Section 2 of this Outline). If the propositions are adopted, the Constitution of New Columbia will be deemed amended accordingly. If the propositions are rejected, this Act is no longer effective. Until New Columbia is admitted into the Union, officials of the District of Columbia will retain their authority. Once admitted, non-elected officials will continue to function under the government of New Columbia. The Governor of New Columbia certifies the election of Senators and the Representative, and these officials will serve in the Congress on the same basis as Senators and Representatives from the other states. rage s SECTION BY SECTION OUTLINE / H.R. 325 Provides for the election of one member of All laws of the District of Columbia will All civil suits and criminal prosecutions Appellate rights, civil and criminal, are Upon the admission of New Columbia into the U.S. Nationality is unaffected by this Act. All acts in conflict with this Act are repealed. Outlines the boundaries of the National Capital Mr. FAUNTROY. The Subcommittee on Fiscal Affairs and Health will come to order. We open, today, the third in a series of at least four hearings this subcommittee intends to conduct on the issue of statehood for the District of Columbia. At our first hearing, we heard from Members of the House and Senate. Among those who presented testimony were Senators Kennedy, Specter, and Inouye, as well as Congressmen Udall, Gray, and Don Edwards. That hearing, the record of which can be found in D.C. Committee Print 98-7, together with oral and written comments we had received from other Members of Congress, formed the basis for the work performed by an informal task force to perfect the proposed constitution which accompanied the District's request for statehood. The results of this effort by the task force, after laboring for a full year, can be found in the D.C. Committee Print S-2. The amendments proposed by the task force formed the basis for our second hearing. The Mayor of the District, the council chairman, and the District's Statehood Party representative on the D.C. Council offered testimony. We also heard from a panel of persons who served on the Statehood Constitution Task Force, including Mr. Charles Cassell, the president of the D.C. Statehood Constitutional Convention; Ms. Josephine Butler, chairperson of the D.C. Statehood Commission; and attorney Joseph Sellers, a member of the Washington Council of Lawyers. The record of that hearing can be found at D.C. Committee Print 99-3. Today, we will hear from several distinguished members of the legal profession on the academic side, as well as on the practitioner side. We have asked some of our witnesses to respond to several key legal and constitutional issues that have emerged in connection with D.C. statehood. Others of our witnesses have been asked to comment on the proposed constitution. At least one of our witnesses will comment on the legal and constitutional issues, as well as the proposed constitution. Before we call our witnesses, I think it is useful to share an opinion expressed very early in this century by another professor of constitutional law at Georgetown University, Prof. Frank Perry. In a 1920 article written for the Georgetown Law Journal, Professor Perry stated, and I quote him: From a study of the wording of the Constitution and of the original grants of this territory from the States of Maryland and Virginia; from an examination of the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States; and from the action of the political branch of the government in retroceding a portion of this area to the State of Virginia; it must be conceded that the weight of precedent and authority is in favor of the proposition that Congress has authority, without a constitutional amendment, to erect out of the District of Columbia a sovereign state. Professor Perry's observations, nearly 70 years ago, stand today as a statement of not only what is just and proper, but also as the |