District of Columbia

After Congress rejected the idea of statehood for the district, D.C. residents felt they had exhausted their legislative options for change. They explored other ways of increasing their influence in Congress, but again the fact that their representative could not vote in Congress posed a major roadblock. A group of residents sought to overcome this limitation by filing a federal lawsuit that challenged the status quo.

Lois Adams and 75 other D.C. residents filed the lawsuit against the president and Congress, arguing that it was unjust that they pay taxes and defend the country in times of war, yet they could not send elected representatives to vote on taxes and war. They claimed that this deprived them of EQUAL PROTECTION of the law and denied them a republican form of government. They also argued that this deprivation violated their DUE PROCESS rights and abridged their PRIVILEGES AND IMMUNITIES as citizens of the United States.

A special three-judge panel heard the case but in the end rejected these arguments. In Adams v. Clinton, 90 F.Supp.2d 35 (D.C. 2000), the court addressed both jurisdictional and constitutional issues. Regarding jurisdiction, the executive and legislative branches contended that the court had no right to even hear the case because the plaintiffs raised issues that were not subject to review by the judicial branch. However, the court rejected the idea that the issues were POLITICAL QUESTIONS beyond its reach and reviewed the merits of the case.

The court looked at the language of the Constitution, as well as history and legal precedent, in making is decisions. It first held that Article I of the Constitution repeatedly refers to "each state," thereby demonstrating that the term did not refer generally to all the people of the United States but to citizens of individual states. Tying the right to Congressional representation to statehood was reinforced by the fact that residents of U.S. territories cannot elect voting representatives to Congress. In addition, history and precedent revealed that the District of Columbia had never been considered a "state" for constitutional purposes. Therefore, the direct constitutional challenge had no merit.

The court rejected an even more novel theory advanced by the plaintiffs that they were entitled to vote in Maryland elections because of their "residual citizenship." This theory relies on the fact that residents of the land ceded by Maryland to form the district continued to vote in Maryland elections between 1790 and 1801, when Congress assumed jurisdiction and provided for the district's government. The court dismissed this claim, noting that a 1964 court decision had rejected the concept of residual citizenship based on the fact that former residents of Maryland lost their state citizenship when the District of Columbia separated from it.

Finally, the court concluded that the EQUAL PROTECTION CLAUSE of the FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT could not be used to strike down another constitutional provision. Though the court found that Congress and the EXECUTIVE BRANCH had failed to give a compelling reason for denying D.C. residents voting representatives, the denial was based on a provision of Article I. Unlike a statute that contains illegal classifications, the constitution cannot be ruled unconstitutional. Therefore, D.C. residents had to convince Congress to either grant it statehood or pass a constitutional amendment that would allow voting representatives from the district.