Representation for District of Columbia

[Earl Maltz]

It seems to me that those who believe that Congress can provide 
representation for the District of Columbia by statute are focusing on the 
wrong question.  The issue is not whether citizens in the District should 
be entitled to vote; rather, the question is whether Congress can provide 
representation for the District as a corporate entity.  On this point, the 
Constitution is quite specific; it provides that "Representatives...shall 
be apportioned among the several States."  Unless the District has been 
unconstitutionally denied its representation for all these years, or it is 
NOT one of the "several States."  I think the choice between these 
alternatives is pretty clear.

In historical terms, the analogy is to the territory ceded to the United 
States in the old Northwest and old Southwest.  No one would have argued 
that the  residents of those states could have been provided representation 
in the House of Representatives prior to admission to statehood.  The 
residents of the District are in precisely the same position.