Disapproving the Action of the District of Columbia Council in Approving the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2022

Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.J. Res. 24, which seeks to nullify the duly enacted laws of the District of Columbia and violates the principle of local, democratic self-government, which is at the heart of the home rule charter for Washington, D.C., and also violates the equal protection and democratic principles that animate our Constitution.

I would like to begin just by observing a striking juxtaposition in contrast between the address we heard last night, the State of the Union Address from the President, and the lecture that we just received now from the floor leader.

President Biden appeared here with a message of unity under the powerful economic growth that we are experiencing as a country--12 million new jobs added, record progress that we are making on climate change, massive investment in the American people in the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Act, the $1.2 trillion investment in the roads, highways, bridges, ports, and airports.

We are dramatically reducing healthcare costs for people in the Medicare program, reducing to $35 a month what diabetics have to pay for their insulin shots.

We are making progress for America. So, what do our good friends across the aisle come back with today, the day after this great statement of national purpose and progress? They want us to become the supercouncil for the District of Columbia and begin to micromanage the bills that are being passed by the representatives locally of 713,000 people.

With no national agenda, with no plans for getting on board with American progress, what do they have? Well, they are going to bring us a whole series of these disapproval resolutions for the people of Washington, D.C.

They don't want to vote in Washington, D.C. They don't want to live in D.C. They can move to D.C. and run for D.C. Council if that is their interest, but no, they just want to lord it over the people of Washington.

They don't like the District of Columbia's voting rules, and they don't like the criminal justice reform they just engaged in for a period of a decade with judges and lawyers, the D.C. Bar, and the people participating. They don't have a hearing on any of it. They just want to decree that they are going to strike it down.

Just you wait, they will be coming back with gun safety laws that will appear in Congress from the people in D.C. because there is that part of the home rule charter that gives us this opportunity if we want to micromanage their policies.

We will see gun safety laws; we will see abortion legislation; we will see equal rights for the LGBTQ population--all of these things the Republican minority used to do a long time ago. They have brought back the worst possible instincts.

They don't want to have a hearing on it. We didn't have a single hearing in the Oversight and Accountability Committee about any of this legislation. None of it.

Did they go to the D.C. Council when it was debated? No, they didn't do that.

Did they invite the Mayor or the D.C. Council to come here? No, they didn't do that.

They just decided they are going to slap around the local population. None of us would accept it for the localities that we represent.

Now, it so happens that people in Washington, D.C., are not just a locality and municipality. The people in Washington are involved right now in a petition for statehood admission to the Union.

In fact, in the 116th Congress and the 117th Congress, this body voted to approve their petition for statehood, but our friends across the aisle opposed that.

It passed the House. If the Senate had approved it, well, then the people of D.C., or whatever their local system is, would be able to decide these things on their own, just like the people in New York City or Albany or any other town in New York would be able to decide for themselves.

I thought that our friends over there were interested in local self- government. I thought they supported home rule, but apparently not when it comes to the people of Washington, D.C.

We reject this throwback attempt at micromanaging the affairs of the people of Washington. They don't need lectures about voting rights. They need voting rights. They are the only population of taxpaying, draftable American citizens in the country who don't have equal voting rights in Congress.

When January 6 came and people stormed this Chamber and waged violence against the Capitol Police, against the Metropolitan Police Department, against hundreds of people who live in Washington, as well as in Maryland and Virginia, the people of Washington stood with democracy. They stood with Congress.

They have a legitimate grievance, not a phony, counterfeit grievance. They are not claiming to have won an election they didn't win. All they are asking for is equal rights.

Let's grant them their statehood. If you can't stomach the idea that they would be a State, at least allow them their home rule rights to decide for themselves who is going to vote in Washington, D.C., what their criminal laws are going to be, what their laws on abortion are going to be, and what their civil rights and civil liberties practices are going to be in the District of Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, I want to make a couple of corrections.

First of all, the D.C. legislation that would be disapproved by this resolution allows only for voting in local elections--school board elections, Advisory Neighborhood Commission elections, council elections. It does not allow voting in Federal elections for noncitizens.

The Constitution, contrary to what the gentlewoman said, permits noncitizen voting at the local level, and there are a number of jurisdictions that do that.

Mr. Speaker, yield 5 minutes to the very distinguished gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

Mr. Speaker, I was just reviewing some materials that showed that both the States that the gentlewoman from Colorado and the gentleman from New York represent had noncitizen voting in the 18th, 19th, and, in the case of Colorado, up to the 20th century. So I think if they are talking about giving away the sacred right to vote, their States have done that before.

It has got a kind of interesting history to it. To me, it is basically irrelevant because it is not our decision to be making. It is up to the people of D.C., just like it is up to the voters of Colorado and it is up to the voters in New York.

But the history of it is intriguing because when the country started--as I am sure the gentlewoman is aware--there were race qualifications for voting and there were gender qualifications for voting. It was only through social struggle that these were removed. But at the beginning of the Republic, all that mattered was the property qualification--the wealth and property qualification--for White men. If you were a White man, regardless of your citizenship status, you had the right to vote.

That lasted basically up to the Civil War. But it became a bone of contention between the North and the South because the Northern States were continuing to defend alien suffrage and the Southern States opposed it. In fact, Mr. Speaker, if you look at Article I of the Confederate Constitution, the very first thing it does, it says that you must be a citizen of the Confederacy in order to vote there.

They didn't want noncitizens voting.

Why?

Because the immigrants were overwhelmingly antislavery.

It was very clear in the debates in Congress about this that the Southern States wanted to get rid of it, which is why the Confederacy banned it. After the Civil War, noncitizen voting spread around the country.

But the point is that when we are talking about local noncitizen voting--who is going to vote in your school board or town council elections--that should be decided locally.

My colleagues who are the ones determined not to make the District of Columbia a State should be the first ones to say that if it is just a local government, then let them decide on who is going to vote on matters of garbage collection and who their teachers are going to be. The jurisdictions that have done this, like Los Angeles, have wanted to make sure that parents in local public schools get the right to vote regardless of their citizenship status.

Most of the noncitizens, of course, are lawful residents, people with green cards, and permanent residents, and they want them to be engaged and involved.

In any event, if my friends really support home rule and local self- determination, they will allow the people of Washington, D.C., to decide.

Ocasio-Cortez).

When I said that they were returning to their worst possible instincts, that was actually a bipartisan comment because in the old days it was Democrats, racist Dixiecrats on the House District Committee who lorded over the District of Columbia and denied the people of Washington their rights. They are returning us to those days where Congress will micromanage the affairs of Washington, D.C., and not allow the people their own self-government.

He said you don't need to be a Republican or a Democrat to understand the issue. It would actually help to know your Abraham Lincoln because, of course, Lincoln was a major defender of noncitizen voting to the extent you guys want to act like a super D.C. Council and get into the merits of it.

In fact, when he was elected, his Southern opponents said he was elected on the strength of the noncitizen vote in New York, as a matter of fact, and in Illinois and other States where they had so-called declarant alien suffrage, which means if you are on the pathway to citizenship you are allowed to vote, which is a policy that makes a lot of sense, but different jurisdictions have different policies according to home rule and self-government.

When Lincoln was here, his major legislative initiative, interestingly enough, was to abolish the slave traffic in the District of Columbia because he felt that freedom and democracy should obtain in the Nation's Capital. That is something that our colleagues should also think about in terms of defining an agenda of their party. I know they are careening from this issue to that issue, but if you are thinking about D.C., think about what Abraham Lincoln did.

Jackson Lee).

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member for his leadership and of course Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton for her continued consistency in refuting and rebutting wrongheaded and misdirected policies that seem to come year after year.

Let me read breaking news from one of the historic newspapers in this month that we begin to focus on Black history. From ``The Washington Informer,'' the headline says, ``D.C. Council Blasts House GOP Interference in City Law.''

``D.C. Council members have lashed out at Republicans on Capitol Hill for seeking to meddle in city affairs.''

For some reason, Ranking Member Raskin, there was some thought that our friends were riding in on a white horse because there was some disagreement on the Council. That disagreement, as you have so effectively said, with the Congresswoman as well, is that they want to handle their own matters.

Let the record be clear: The United States Constitution does not forbid noncitizens from casting a vote in local, State, and other elections. At least 15 cities currently allow noncitizens to cast ballots in local elections, and particularly noncitizens were occasionally permitted to cast ballots in local, State, and Federal elections in 40 States from the time of the Nation's inception until 1926.

We have had a history of local decisions being made by local voters. In this instance, local voters voted and made a decision. Whatever modifications they desire to make, they are not asking this place to implode their work.

As we begin to think about voting rights, I would ask my colleagues to help join us in supporting the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act that Democrats have tried to pass here in this Congress for a long, long time.

I would ask them to help us in the redistricting that skewed and denied Democrats in Texas two districts that were legitimately, based upon the Census, in fact, created by Hispanics and African Americans.

Ms. JACKSON LEE. In redistricting across the Nation, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas were States in which voting rights were directly undermined. Some of the restrictive legislation that was passed in Georgia and Texas is evidence of the oppression of many in the party of my friends across the aisle's States to deny people of color their right to vote.

Mr. Speaker, it looks as if we have an opportunity here. For champions of voting rights that seem to be evidenced across the aisle, join me in the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. At this time in this month, we ask that you allow the citizens of Washington, D.C., one, at some point to have statehood, but, more importantly, in this instance to stay out of home rule decisions or to stay out of decisions granted to them. Those decisions are granted to them.

For that reason, I am enthusiastically in opposition to H.J. Res. 24 because this legislation goes beyond the boundaries of the responsibilities, duties, and rights of this body. Leave the Government of Washington, D.C., to the people of Washington, D.C.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong opposition to H.J. Res. 24-- Disapproving the action of the District of Columbia Council in approving the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2022.

H.J. Res. 24 will overturn the Local Resident Voting Act of 2022, a measure passed by will of the people in the District of Columbia Council.

This overreaching resolution seeks to overturn the will of Washington, D.C. people, who voted to support the rights of noncitizens who fulfill residency and other requirements to vote in district local elections under the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act of 2022.

Let the record be clear, Mr. Speaker, the United States Constitution does not forbid noncitizens from casting their vote in local, state, or federal elections.

At least 15 cities currently allow non-citizens to cast ballots in local elections.

While voting in federal elections was made illegal for noncitizens in 1996, the legal voting of noncitizens in American elections has a long history in this nation.

Noncitizens were occasionally permitted to cast ballots in local, state, and federal elections in 40 states from the time of the nation's inception until 1926.

During the early years, the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801 granted Congress sole power over the district's boundaries, depriving its citizens of the voting privileges they had previously enjoyed as residents of Maryland and Virginia.

Due to its treatment as a U.S. territory rather than a state, the District of Columbia has no voting representation in Congress and is certainly not given its fair amount of federal funding--despite the fact that Washington, D.C. residents pay more federal taxes per person than citizens of any other state, and more than residents of 22 states combined.

It is no secret that when politicians seek to suppress voting rights, the feared component of increased racial political power rears its ugly head in driving and motivating shifts in laws that will eliminate or stunt the political growth of minority populations in America.

As we stand here today, marking the first week of Black History Month, we must acknowledge that we are standing in a building built by the hands of slaves, and we are standing in a city that is not only one of the most diverse cities in the country, but is also home to one of the largest Black populations--yes, Washington DC--our nation's capital.

The underrepresentation of Blacks and minorities in our nation's capital and in our national democratic systems is a shameful stain on our morals and values as Americans.

We must put an end to current and historical voter suppression and we must stop pushing oppressive and systemically racist policies if we are ever to truly be a nation united by our democratic pillars and principles.

The nearly 700,000 D.C. residents, a majority of whom are Black and Brown, are worthy and capable of self-government.

And Congress, which is not accountable to D.C. residents, should not interfere with legislation duly enacted by the duly elected D.C. government.

Members of Congress should not substitute their policy judgment for the judgment of D.C.'s elected officials.

Quite simply, Congress should keep its hands off D.C.

The legislative history and merits of the two bills enacted by D.C. that are the subject of the disapproval resolutions--the Revised Criminal Code Act and the Local Resident Voting Amendment Act--should be irrelevant to the consideration of these disapproval resolutions, since there is never justification for Congress nullifying legislation enacted by D.C.

That being said, we need to set the record straight on these two bills enacted by D.C.

Under the D.C. Home Rule Act, which was passed by Congress, D.C.'s legislature, the 13-member D.C. Council, is required to pass legislation twice, with at least 13 intervening days between each vote, to enact legislation.

Legislation passed by the Council and signed by the D.C. mayor--or with a veto override or without the mayor's signatures--is transmitted to Congress for a review period.

The legislation takes effect at the expiration of a review period, unless a resolution of disapproval is enacted into law during the review period.

And yet, the House did not hold a hearing or markup on either disapproval resolution.

This resolution cannot stand as a serious policy measure to be respected on the floors of this chamber, and must be opposed.

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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, the distinguished gentlewoman from Colorado boasts that her State is number one in auto thefts, number one in bank robberies, and number two in fentanyl, as I understand it. It sounds like they have got their hands full with their own problems, and I don't know that they should be spending their time dictating to the people of Washington, D.C., what their voting rights policy is going to be.

Now both the gentlewoman from Colorado and the gentleman from New York invite the question of would it actually be administratively possible for a jurisdiction to have two separate voting lists for those who are eligible to vote just in local elections and those who are eligible to vote in both local and Federal elections?

Well, that is a great question that you could have posed at a hearing within the Oversight Committee if we had one, but we didn't have it. I actually happen to have researched this question, and there are a number of jurisdictions around the country which permit noncitizen voting at the local level, and they have one list for that. If you are a noncitizen when you enter, your name is checked off that list, and you get one ballot which is just for your school board elections and the local elections. Then if you are a citizen, you get a complete ballot that includes local, State, and Federal elections, so there actually is an answer, and it is working in multiple jurisdictions around the country, including several in my home State of Maryland. I think the same thing used to be able to work in New York State as well; so that is something that would be easily researchable, and it is something also that we could have answered if we had followed regular order and actually had so much as one hearing on this subject before deciding to jump in like King Kong and squash the people of Washington, D.C.

Norton), the distinguished nonvoting Delegate.

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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, I should say that none of those jurisdictions have been overrun with fentanyl or illegal aliens. All of those jurisdictions are functioning democratic self-governmental units, just as the jurisdictions in New York and Colorado that had the same practice were.

This really isn't about noncitizen voting, Mr. Speaker. This is about democratic self-government and allowing local jurisdictions to make home rule decisions for themselves because this isn't the end of it. It is just the beginning.

Tomorrow, I think we are going to be considering a resolution of disapproval for the District of Columbia's criminal justice reform that they have engaged in over the last 9 or 10 years involving Federal judges, local judges, council members, the D.C. Bar, and so on. We didn't know anything about that. We didn't have a hearing. Yet, someone is going to pick something out.

What the good chairman of our committee talked about in the Rules Committee was a carjacking law where I guess the minimum sentence changed. Well, we looked up Kentucky. Kentucky doesn't even have a carjacking law. You would have to use armed robbery, which can only get you 20 years. The District of Columbia would treat carjacking with up to a 24-year sentence.

These are the kinds of measurements we are going to have to go through with everybody's State and everybody's jurisdiction if we are really going to turn ourselves into the super-D.C. Council and try to get to know the people of Washington and what their concerns are and what they are into.

The whole reason we went to home rule in 1973 was so that Congress could spend its time on national policy issues, the kind that President Biden was talking about last night. We just added 12 million new jobs to the American economy. We passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure plan to invest in the ports, airports, bridges, roads, and highways all across America, not just in the District of Columbia, no insult intended. That is a very tiny part of the jurisdiction of Congress, and they want to turn us basically into an appellate legislative division over the District of Columbia.

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to close, and I reserve the balance of my time.

This legislation promises to be the first of many. I think tomorrow criminal justice reform comes up. I know that the MAGA wing of the Republican Party doesn't like Medicaid-funded abortions in Washington, D.C. They don't like the stricter gun safety laws that the people of Washington, D.C., have passed. They don't like their progressive legislation protective of the LGBTQ community and so on.

We are headed now for a mini culture war between the dominant MAGA wing of the Republican Conference today and the people of the District of Columbia, who find themselves in an odd situation because they want to be admitted to the Union the way 37 States have been admitted to the Union after the original 13 were.

That means, by the way, that three-quarters of the States, nearly 75 percent of the States, came in after the original 13. They appealed to Congress to use our powers under Article IV of the Constitution to admit new States. They had exercised their powers under the First Amendment, under the Ninth Amendment, and under the 10th Amendment to organize a new statehood constitution and to petition for admission to the Union.

Our muscle memory is weak here because it hasn't happened since Hawaii and Alaska, but Thomas Jefferson thought that this was the destiny of communities under the United States of America. We would not be a colonial power that would continue to lord over people perpetually. On the contrary, when he talked about the Northwest Ordinance, he said as sufficient population formed and as commitment to democratic principles were realized, these new communities would be admitted as States.

I think, as a matter of basic civic respect and self-respect, we owe the people of Washington our attention when they are asking for admission to the Union. These are people who pay more per capita in Federal taxes than anybody in the country, more in hard dollars, I believe, than the people of 18 or 20 States. They have served in every war that America has ever fought. They are subject to the military draft.

It is just that when Eleanor Holmes Norton, the distinguished professor of constitutional law from Georgetown University, comes to this floor, she comes as a nonvoting Delegate. There is no representation and no voice over in the Senate. That is an offense to basic democratic principles that we teach children in second grade.

We should be passing statehood again in the 118th Congress the way we passed it in the 117th, the way we passed it in the 116th, and we should get the Senate to focus on it. Short of that, the very last thing we should be doing is rolling back the limited rights the people of Washington have to exercise home rule powers.

Mr. Speaker, I oppose this resolution, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

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