DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA REPRESENTATION AND VOTE THURSDAY, APRIL 7, 1960 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE No. 5 OF THE The subcommittee was called to order at 10 a.m., in room 346, House Office Building, Hon. William M. McCulloch presiding. Present: Emanuel Celler (chairman of the committee), Peter W. Rodino, Jr., Byron G. Rogers, Lester Holtzman, Harold D. Donohue, Herman Toll, William M. McCulloch, William E. Miller, and George Meader. Also present: Roland V. Libonati, member of the committee. Cyril F. Brickfield, counsel; Wm. H. Crabtree, associate counsel; Richard Peet, counsel. Mr. MCCULLOCH. The committee will please come to order. By reason of a very important commitment of our colleague, Mr. Harris, the gentleman from Arkansas, we will hear a statement from him immediately. We are very happy to have you here, Mr. Chairman. STATEMENT OF HON. OREN HARRIS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARKANSAS Mr. HARRIS. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, thank you very much for your courtesy. I am indeed pressed for time because of pressure of a committee meeting that is supposed to be underway, and there are a good many witnesses to be heard this morning on the ethics problem in our regulatory agencies of the Government. Your distinguished chairman, Mr. Čeller and I were talking last night. He suggested that if I could get the time to drop by for just one minute, to do so. I have done so to express my full and complete support for the resolution, for the amendment to the Constitution to provide for a vote for the citizens of the District fo Columbia for the President and Vice President, and to provide for a delegate in the House of Representatives. Very briefly, you know that I was chairman of the subcommittee on the District of Columbia even back in the days on the committee with our distinguished Senator from West Virginia, Senator Randolph. I was opposed to the many proposals at that time regarding the so-called home rule approach that they made for the District of Columbia. 117 As chairman of the subcommittee I heard many, many witnesses. We took a lot of testimony, voluminous hearings were held on the entire subject matter. During the course of these hearings and the consideration of all of these problems I announced my intention and my full support of providing suffrage for the people of the District of Columbia for this purpose. I introduced resolutions which came to this committee and urged that they be adopted. I haven't changed my mind in my support for this approach to it. I think it is the right approach, and I am here in full support of Chairman Celler and the other members of the committee on this problem. Mr. MCCULLOCH. We are very happy to hear you, Mr. Harris. Mr. Miller, do you wish to ask the chairman of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce any questions? Mr. MILLER. No. Mr. HARRIS. Thank you for your courtesy, and my distinguished colleagues and Senators who are here this morning. Mr. MCCULLOCH. Our next witness is the Honorable Francis Case, U.S. Senator from South Dakota. STATEMENT OF HON. FRANCIS CASE, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA Senator CASE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I regard it as a real privilege to come over here and first of all to extend my greetings to the members of the committee who were colleagues of mine in the days when I served in the House of Representatives, and also to express my appreciation for the opportunity to speak in behalf of the proposed constitutional amendment which would give the citizens of the District of Columbia the right to vote for presidential electors and also Delegates in the House of Representatives. When I come to speak on this subject of votes for the people of Washington, I come as an old friend of the voteless citizens of the District of Columbia. Not only when I was in the House of Representatives did I serve on the Appropriations Subcommittee for the District of Columbia for a time, but also for several years I was a member of the Legislative Committee on the District of Columbia in the Senate and was chairman of the committee during the 83d Congress. Even before I was chairman of that committee in the first Congress of which I was a Member of the Senate, I had the honor accorded me by the then majority leader, Senator McFarland of Arizona, and Senator Neely, of handling on the floor a so-called home rule bill for the District of Columbia. This was a little unusual in view of the fact I was a Member of the minority in the Senate at the time. I mention that only because I had the experience of piloting for 12 days the course of a so-called home rule bill in the Senate during the first term of which I was a Member of the Senate. During the 83d Congress when I was chairman of the District Committee I had the privilege again of handling a home rule bill on the floor of the Senate. On two occasions, then I went through the experience of piloting a home rule bill through the Senate, and I mention that merely to make clear that I have been in favor of votes for the District of Columbia for the people who pay taxes here. I think they should have some voice in their Government. Reluctantly, however, I came to the conclusion that this was not the way in which votes would first be provided for the District of Columbia, if ever. I saw those bills come to the House of Representatives and languish and die for reasons with which the members of this committee are as familiar as I. I came rather reluctantly to the conclusion then that the proper approach, or the best approach for those who believe that people ought not to be taxed in this country unless they had a voice in their Government, was to propose the constitutional amendment. And so I introduced a constitutional amendment in the Senate. And in order that I might bring it to the attention of the city and the Congress I offered it as a substitute for a home rule bill in the Senate in July of 1959. We had considerable discussion on the procedural situation that developed then: How do you attach a constitutional amendment to a legislative bill? Some of the members of the Senate District Committee would have preferred that I offer it as an addition to the bill, as an additional amendment. I offered it as a substitute because I thought, and I said very directly at the time, that my experience in the House of Representatives and my experience with these two home rule bills had convinced me that any bill that came to the House of Representatives, and would be referred to the House Committee on the District of Columbia, would languish and die; but that I thought that by offering it as a substitute for the home rule bill, that is, offering the constitutional amendment to provide for votes on presidental electors and Delegates, if it came over here as a constitutional amedment then it would come before this committee. I expressed confidence that the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives would consider the constitutional amendment and I said this, and I quote from the record of July 15, 1959: I feel that he [referring to the chairman] and his committee would give prompt consideration to it and I think there would be a chance to get some action. The fact that this committee is holding these hearings, and the expressions of opinion that have been credited to members of this committee, justify that faith, I believe. In fact you are giving the matter prompt attention when it finallly did come before you. At the time I offered the constitutional amendment as a substitute for the home rule bill in July 1959, as I said some of them would have preferred that I offer it as an addition to the bill rather than as a substitute. But after the Chair ruled that if tacked onto the home rule bill it would have required a two-thirds vote for passage of the entire bill, I decided not to offer it as an addition but offered it as a substitute, and we voted on it in the Senate. That was the first time I believe that the Senate ever did vote upon the question of a constitutional amendment to provide voting by the people of the District of Columbia on electors for President and Delegates in the House of Representatives. Because of the fact, however, that the District Committee felt its home rule bill would thus be bypassed and set aside, members of that committee, though indicating favor for the constitutional amendment, did not vote for it as a substitute. That, coupled with the fact that members who wanted home rule and felt that substituting the constitutional amendment would make it impossible for them to get a vote on it, didn't vote for it. But two significant things happened. We did get several votes for the constitutional amendment from Members of the Senate who every previous time had indicated opposition to any form of home rule legislation. And if you were to read the names of the Members of the Senate-I shall not recite them here-which appear at page 12233 of the Record for July 15 you would recognize the names of many Senators who have been opposed to home rule as such for the District of Columbia. So it demonstrated that there is support for this type of legislation that would not come on a bill for home rule. I think you will find that same experience in the House of Representatives. In fact as I listened to your distinguished colleague, the chairman of the Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce this morning, it was evident that here you had a concrete example of the fact that there is support for the constitutional amendment where support does not rest in the same person for the so-called home rule. The other significant thing was that Senator Keating, of New York, and two or three other Senators who are members of the Judiciary Committee, indicated an interest in that approval. The result was that the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, which up to that time had not held hearings on our constitutional amendments, decided to hold hearings on the constitutional amendment. Senator Keating and Senator Beall, Beall being the present ranking minority member of the District Committee, and I appeared before the committee headed by Senator Kefauver, and the outcome of it was a bill reported. That bill was sort of a consolidation of the three constitutional amendments we had individually proposed, and was reported favorably by that subcommittee. Consequently, later when we had the constitutional amendment before the Senate, which proposed to deal with the election of the Members of the House of Representatives in case a majority of the House were unfortunately incapacitated, Senator Keating offered the amendment which was the consolidation of our amendments before the Judiciary Committee as an amendment to this constitutional amendment, and the Senate agreed to it. That was the way in which the issue was adopted by the Senate. The three-part constitutional amendment, one dealing with the primary elections, one part dealing with the poll tax and applying to primaries, one part dealing with the election of Members of the House of Representatives in case of disaster, and the third part dealing with this matter of votes in the District of Columbia. I have recited this to give you a background of the action in the Senate and to say, by so doing if I can, that I think that this is the best chance that the people of the District of Columbia have had to have a vote given them as they should have by reason of the fact that they are citizens of the United States, that they pay taxes, that this is the seat of government. Mr. Chairman, it has always seemed to me that it is the ultimate irony that the people who reside at the seat of government for the Nation that preaches to the world about self-government, have been denied any voice whatsoever in their own government. And I repeat that, because I think that that is the nub of this whole matter. We preach to the whole world the virtues of self-government. Yet in the very Capital City we have persistently denied any voice in their own government to the people who live here. I submitted a letter to you, Mr. Chairman, and I would like to have the entire letter made a part of my remarks, or inserted, if it can be. (The letter is as follows:) Hon. EMANUEL CELLER, U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC WORKS, Chairman, House Judiciary Committee, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, D.C. MY DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: You and your committee are to be commended for taking up the question of giving the right of franchise to District of Columbia residents. This is the ultimate irony: that the people who reside at the seat of government for the Nation that preaches to the world about self-government are denied any voice whatever in their own government. Despite the millions of words spoken and written against this denial of suffrage, is it not equally ironic that this matter has not reached the Senate or the House for a vote in 160 years? Many will recall that during the first session of this Congress (July 15, 1959) when the Senate was considering S. 1681, providing home rule for the District, I offered as an amendment the text of Senate Joint Resolution 60 to give the right of franchise to District of Columbia residents. A number of Senators, who supported this in principle, did not favor tying the District of Columbia vote with District of Columbia home rule and the amendment was defeatedbut several said they would support it if they could vote on it on its own merits and not in replacement of the home rule bill. This was encouraging so on August 18, I appeared before the Constitutional Amendments Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee which was considering Senate Joint Resolution 126 relating to the poll tax. I urged that the District of Columbia voting amendment be added to that amendment. Senator Keating made a similar presentation. As a result of the interest which these efforts stimulated, I joined with Senators Beall and Keating in sponsoring Senate Joint Resolution 138, which harmonized the minor differences of approach taken in the separate proposals introduced earlier. This resolution, after a hearing, was favorably reported with the amendment that the number of delegates the District of Columbia would have would be equal to the number it would be entitled if it were a State. Thus, when the District of Columbia vote amendment was approved as a part of the three-amendment package in February of this year, I was more than pleased. No amount of oratory, no amount of breast beating, no dosage of foreign aid can wipe out the blot of this hypocrisy of vote denial. Not property or the lack of it, not literacy or illiteracy, not the poll tax, not sex, not age but residence and residence alone denies suffrage to those who reside at the seat of government for the United States. Government for residents of the District of Columbia can never be truly government by the governed until they participate in the election of the national administration and of representation in Congress. No plan for electing a local council can provide true self-government unless the Constitution is changed. This is true because of the constitutional provision that Congress shall have exclusive legislative power for the seat of government and because the President names judges and certain administrative officials for the District. Every home rule bill, so-called, recognizes that final legislative authority resides in Congress; and, for that reason, every such bill carries language to make clear |