These qualifications are objectionable on at least two grounds, namely:

1. There is no requirement of domicile in the District of Columbia for more than the 1 year required for a qualified voter. This should be extended to at least 3 years.

2. The language as to holding other office is such as to permit a Federal employee holding a high position, whose office is not elective and whose compensation is not provided out of District funds, to be a member of the District Council. This should not be permitted.

LEGISLATIVE PROPOSALS

Section 325 is as follows:

SEC. 325. (a) Except as provided in section 326 (a), the District Council may pass legislative proposals on any subject coming within the scope of the power of Congress in its capacity as legislature for the District of Columbia, as distinguished from its capacity as the national legislature.

(b) A legislative proposal passed by the District Council shall take effect as law only as provided in title IV.

Title IV provides that such a legislative proposal shall become a law only if it is not vetoed by joint resolution of the two Houses of Congress within 45 days after it is presented to them, and if not disapproved by the President within 10 days after it is presented to him. By this provision, every proposal by the District Council is left subject to attack in the Congress by any Member of the House or Senate, and the complete power over its becoming effective as a law, or failing to become effective, is retained in the hands of Congress and the President. On this subject of enactment of general laws, the present bill wholly fails to grant the effective "right of suffrage to the people of the District of Columbia," as promised by the majority party, or real "selfgovernment for the residents of the Nation's capital," as promised by the minority party.

THE DISTRICT MANAGER

The provision for the District Manager is as follows:

SEC. 501. The District Council shall appoint a District Manager who shall serve at the pleasure of the Council and who shall be chosen solely on the basis of his executive and administrative qualifications, with special reference to his experience in, or his knowledge of, the administration of the affairs of local government.

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There is no requirement that the District Manager shall ever have lived in the District of Columbia, nor that he shall have experience in the executive affairs of any city of the size of the District of Columbia. Obviously, it is intended that he shall be chosen from outside of the District of Columbia; therefore, he would be a man acquainted with the administration of local government as extensive and complex as

ours.

According to the Municipal Year Book of 1948. all cities in the United States having a population of 500,000 or over were governed by a mayor and council. Only six cities having a population ranging from 250,000 up to 500,000 had the city manager and council form of government. The problem of governing a city of nearly 1,000,000 population, soon to be more than a million, by the city manager form of government presents an utterly untried field.

In section 502, the District Manager is made the chief executive officer of the District Government, responsible to the District Council; and by section 504, the functions of the various principal divisions of the District Government are transferred to him, with the power to reorganize or abolish any agency and to create new agencies, and to abolish the position or office of any officer or employee, other than a member of a board, transferred to his office, and to create new offices and positions.

In title IX, section 901, 12 executive departments are created, each to be headed by a director who shall be appointed by the District Manager. It is not even required that the heads of these departments appointed by the District Manager shall be subject to confirmation by the District Council, which fixes the amount of their salaries.

Under these provisions, it is entirely possible for some person who may have been the city manager of a small city in some remote part of the country, without experience in handling the affairs of a great city, to be appointed City Manager, and he, in turn, to select and appoint 12 directors of executive departments of the city's government who may come from 12 different parts of the United States to direct the affairs of the Nation's Capital. This would not be "home rule," and it certainly would not be within the language heretofore quoted from the 1948 platforms of the two great political parties. This certainly would not be "self-government for the residents of the Nation's Capital."

SPECIFIC DEFECTS IN THE BILL S. 1527

There are certain specific defects in the bill, S. 1527, upon which we wish to comment:

1. Department of Law: The placing of the office of the Recorder of Deeds in the Department of Law, under the director of that department, who would be the successor to the present Corporation Counsel, would be an example of undesirable mingling of inconsistent functions. This may be understood by suggesting that the sponsors of this bill should visualize, if they can, a county recorder of deeds office placed under the executive supervision of a county attorney. This would be quite absurd. Inquiry has been made and no instance found throughout the United States of such a placing of a recorder of deeds office under the direction of the official prosecutor, or legal adviser, of a municipality or county. Whatever legislation may be passed should leave this office independent as it is throughout the United States. To burden the head of the Law Department of the Nation's Capital with the multitude of detail duties involved in the operation of the office of Recorder of Deeds would greatly impair his efficiency in carrying out the duties of his own office.

2. Department of Public Works: Section 908 of the bill is as follows: SEC. 908. (a) The functions of—

(1) the Department of Construction, the Department of Sanitary Engineering, the Department of Inspection (except the functions of the Motion Picture Operators Examining Board, the Electrical Examining Board, the Board of Examiners of Steam and Other Operating Engineers, and the Plumbing Board), the Department of Highways (except the functions of the Automobile Board), the Office of the Surveyor, and the Office of the Chief Clerk, Public Works; and

(2) the Secretary of the Army and the Chief of Engineers of the Regular Army of the United States with respect to the reclamation and development of Anacostia Park;

Are hereby transferred to the Director of the Department of Public Works. (b) The Department of Construction, Sanitary Engineering, Inspection, and Highways, are hereby abolished.

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Under the above-quoted provisions, all the functions now exercised by Army engineers, as the Engineer Commissioner and Assistant Engineer Commissioners of the District of Columbia, would be transferred to a Director of the Department of Public Works who might be a civil engineer, of more or less experience and capacity, but who almost certainly would not have the experience and ability which has been devoted to the engineering affairs of the District of Columbia by the various men who have held the office of Engineer Commissioner and Assistant Engineer Commissioner from 1878 to the present day. These men have functioned to the greatest possible benefit of the District of Columbia in its engineering affairs, and with no public or official criticism so far as the board of trade is aware. We respectfully urge that this provision of the bill be changed so as to require that the Director of Public Works shall be an officer of the Corps of Engineers of the United States Army and that his assistants shall also come from that corps.

3. Functions relating to zoning: Section 322 (b) transfers the Zoning Advisory Council, a purely local function, to the National Capital Park and Planning Commission, a body composed of six Presidential appointees, two of whom are recommended by the Governors of Maryland and Virginia, and seven ex officio members, four Federal and three District officials. Section 324 (a) excepts zoning ordinances, a local municipal matter, from taking effect as law when passed by the District Council.

4. The chairman of the District Council: Section 331 provides for the election of a chairman by the District Council from among its members, but does not limit the chairmanship to an "elected" member of the Council. This would permit the election of one of the Presidential appointees who, under the provisions of section 331

shall be the presiding officer of the District Council, the official spokesman for the District, and the head of the District for ceremonial purposes.

Certainly, if there is to be an elected home rule government, the chairman should be one elected by the qualified voters.

In

5. Department of Libraries: In title IX of the bill, S. 1527, 1 of the 12 executive departments created is the Department of Libraries. section 909 of title IX the functions of the Board of Library Trustees and of the Librarian are transferred to the Director of the Department of Libraries, and the office of Librarian is abolished.

This is contrary to the best recognized library experience and practice. If the bill should be enacted, its provisions regarding the Public Library should be such as would continue the Board of Library Trustees and the office of Librarian, "together with all powers and duties as provided under existing law."

6. Board of Education: In title XI, sections 1101 and 1102 (a), a new Board of Education is created, consisting of seven members elected as provided in title XII, and the present Board of Education is abolished and its functions transferred to the new Board.

These sections do not define the qualifications for membership on the new Board of Education, which we suggest should not be less than 5 years' domicile in the District preceding their election. Under the present law, members of the Board are required to have been residents in the District for 5 years immediately preceding their nomination for office.

7. Board of Elections: In title XII, section 1201 (a) (1), there is created by the bill S. 1527, as an agency of the District government, a Board of Elections consisting of five members, who shall be appointed by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. The further provisions of said section contemplate the appointment of the successor of the first Board of Elections in the same manner. This Board of Elections is given complete power over elections to the District Council and to the Board of Education, and thus a very powerful string, it might almost be called a rope, is tied to the so-called home rule tendered by Congress to the citizens of the District of Columbia in the bill S. 1537.

8. Department of Labor: Section 910 (a) (1) provides that the functions of the District Unemployment Compensation Board are transferred to the Director of the Department of Labor.

We believe that the functions of the District Unemployment Compensation Board should not be made a part of the Department of Labor, nor that the Director of the Department of Labor should have the authority to appoint the public representative of such Board.

The District Unemployment Compensation Act is of great importance alike to employers and employees. Employers foot the entire bill so that employees may receive the benefits when unemployed, through no fault of their own, and thereby afford them temporary security between the time one job runs out and they secure another position. One of the stated purposes of the Federal unemployment compensation law is to provide incentives toward employment stabilization. In addition to the interests of the employers and the employees in the administration of this law, it is a matter of broad public interest, and its administration should be in the hands of a disinterested board rather than the director of a department of labor. It may be safely assumed that no one would be appointed director of such a department unless his history and training were on the side of labor.

The committee's attention is invited to the fact that in 1936, when the social security law was enacted, it was proposed that that law be administered by the Department of Labor; however, Congress, believing this to be unwise, provided for administration by a separate board representative of all elements of the population.

Twice during the Eightieth Congress the President issued reorganization plans transferring the administration of unemployment compensation on a Federal level to the Department of Labor, and in both instances the Congress vetoed the proposals. The same considerations are present with respect to the administration of the District of Columbia unemployment compensation law.

ELECTIONS

Title XII, section 1201 (a) (2), provides that the members of the Board of Elections shall be appointed from among the qualified electors who reside and are domiciled in the District.

In contrast to this requirement, section 1206 provides that a qualified elector of the District shall be any person who has maintained a domicile, or a place of abode, in the District continuously since the beginning of the 1-year period ending on the day of the next election, or if such period has not begun, maintains a domicile or place of abode in the District, with other requirements specified as to citizenship, age, and so forth. It further contains the following:

SEC. 1206. (a) To be qualified to vote in the District, it is not intended that a person be required to relinquish his rights in another jurisdiction.

The effect of the above last-quoted provision of section 1206 will be to permit the civil-service employees of the United States Government who have "a place of abode" in the District, but consider themselves as only temporary residents thereof, not "domiciled" therein, to be at least the balance of power in the local elections of the District Council and the Board of Education. Such persons, under the provisions of the bill, would have the right to vote at such elections even though they come from American Samoa, Guam, Virgin Islands, Panama Canal Zone, Puerto Rico, Hawaii, or Alaska, all of which are included in the provisions of the Civil Service Apportionment Act. This provision is an attempt to legalize dual voting, with one vote in the District of Columbia and the other in the voter's home State. Nothing could be more objectionable.

The Bureau of the Census estimate of the population for the metropolitan area of Washington shows a total population in 1948 of 1,388,000, and that of that number 74 percent are adults.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics of the Department of Labor in May 1949 stated the total Federal employees in the metropolitan area as 223,234. We may safely assume that these employees are adults, although there may be some slight variation therefrom in fact. This total number of Federal employees is 20.7 percent of the total adult population of the metropolitan area.

The Bureau of the Census estimate for the year 1948 shows the population of the District of Columbia to be 898,000. Assuming the same percentages to be applicable to the District's estimated population, there would be 664,520 adults in that population, of whom 137,556 would be Government employees and entitled to vote if this bill were enacted. There might be a few Government employees who recently came into the District and therefore could not vote.

This is a far cry from "self-government for the residents of the Nation's Capital," and from "the extension of the right of suffrage to the people of the District of Columbia."

BORROWING FOR CAPITAL IMPROVEMENTS

Under title VII, the District is authorized to incur indebtedness by issuing its negotiable bonds to finance any capital project which it may lawfully construct or acquire, to a maximum amount not exceeding 5 percent of the taxable real property in the District.

Such a bond issue must be approved in a referendum to be conducted by the Board of Elections, but all "qualified electors" may vote in such referendum, and thus a bond issue indebtedness may be laid upon the District of Columbia by the votes of the people who are here only for a period of years, perhaps much less than the 30 years' maximum maturity of the bond issue, and who intend to return to