and one in the House. If the citizens of the District are to be provided with a voice in the Congress, then they are entitled to be heard in the Senate as well as the House. For a long time I have advocated something similar to the resolution now before your subcommittee. I commend you and other subcommittee members for holding hearings on the subject. Sincerely, Hon. JAMES O. EASTLAND, TOM G. ABERNETHY, FEDERATION OF CITIZENS ASSOCIATIONS Chairman, Judiciary Committee, DEAR SENATOR EASTLAND: At the February meeting of the Federation of Citizens Associations of the District of Columbia, representing 55 neighborhood groups, the following resolution was adopted: Whereas the Federation of Citizens Associations of the District of Columbia in November 1955 petitioned the Congress for passage of the Broyhill bill, and in 1957 for passage of House Joint Resolution 18 to provide for a constitutional amendment to enable the people of the District of Columbia to vote for President and Vice President of the United States in future presidential elections; and Whereas an identical joint resolution, House Joint Resolution 151, has been introduced by Mr. Broyhill together with House Joint Resolution 152 to enable the people of the District of Columbia to elect Members of Congress: Therefore be it Resolved, That we, the Federation of Citizens Associations of the District of Columbia, at our regular meeting held Thursday, February 12, reendorse our previous actions to petition the Congress for the passage of House Joint Resolutions 151 and 152, for constitutional amendments to enable the people of the District of Columbia to vote for President and Vice President of the United States in future presidential elections, and to enable the people of the District of Columbia to elect Members of Congress, and recommend that a copy of this resolution be sent to the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, the appropriate committees of the Congress, and the President of the United States. Since Mr. Broyhill introduced House Joint Resolutions 151 and 152, Senator Case has introduced legislation on the same subject, I understand, but as yet I do not have a copy. It, I presume, is before your committee. The Federation hopes that your committee will give most serious consideration to this matter, for with District representation on the floor of the Congress, Members from the States would obtain a much better understanding of the problems of the District of Columbia over which they exercise so much control. Respectfully yours, Mrs. EDWARD B. MORRIS, Secretary. Senator KEFAUVER. The first witness we are going to call this afternoon is Senator Jennings Randolph, of West Virginia. Let me say in introducing Senator Randolph that I had the privilege over a period of 10 years of serving with him in the House of Representatives. He was a member of the District Committee in the House of Representatives for 14 years, and he was chairman of the District of Columbia Committee in the House of Representatives for 7 years. To my knowledge-and I think this would be verified if you go back through the history of our country-there never has been a Member of Congress who has been more interested in the welfare of the people of the District of Columbia and who has given more time to the District of Columbia than Senator Randolph. He was chairman of the District of Columbia Committee, during World War II, a very difficult time, and he had many problems in the District which he always looked into with great thoroughness and patience. The people of the District owe Senator Randolph an everlasting vote of thanks for his thoughtfulness in looking after them during this time. Therefore, Senator Randolph, we are especially glad to have your views about this resolution. STATEMENT OF HON. JENNINGS RANDOLPH, U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA Senator RANDOLPH. Mr. Chairman, the gracious words you have spoken are genuinely appreciated. It was my privilege to hold membership in the House of Representatives of the United States during that period in which you were also a Member of that body. I would not indulge in pleasantry, but in your appraisal of the problems of active citizenship, you have given service and consideration to the well-being of the people of the district you represented, and now of the State you represent. Mr. Chairman, you have been ever-constant in your desire to be of assistance to the men and women who reside in the District of Columbia. My interest in the substance of Senate Joint Resolution 138 antedates my election to the United States House of Representatives in the 73d Congress. It was my responsibility to come to that duty in March 1933. As a younger man I became Senator KEFAUVER. Senator Randolph, if you had not given us that date, why, none of us would have believed it. Senator RANDOLPH. Thank you, sir. That was under the so-called lameduck Congress which began its meeting in March rather than our current date in January. I became interested in this lack of suffrage here. More importantly I became impressed by the strange political anomoly which finds the residents of the Capital City of the United States, a country which stands before the world as the exemplar of representative government, denied all voting representation in their Government. It seemed to me then, as it does now, as a contradiction of our democratic principles, for which some acceptable remedy can and must be found. My concern increased during the years that you have mentioned, Mr. Chairman, when I was a Member of the House of Representatives, and all of those years, 14, as you have indicated, were spent as a member of the Committee on the District of Columbia. As you also stated, for half that number of years I was privileged to carry the responsibility of the chairmanship of that committee. In 1938 I introduced House Joint Resolution 564 in the 75th Congress, in its 3d session, a resolution to amend the Constitution. My idea was that the amendment would accomplish two purposes: It conferred upon Congress the power to establish a republican form of government for the District of Columbia, with the government so established exercising such legislative, executive, and judicial functions as the Congress, in its wisdom, might decide. The same resolution provided for representation of the people of the District of Columbia in Congress, and in the electoral college; the representation in the House to be determined on the basis of population, with one or two Senators, as Congress might provide. Now, the Senate has already passed at this session a home rule bill, and measures for the same purpose are pending in the House. That legislation is based on the theory that the Congress can establish a locally elected municipal government without amending the Constitution of the United States. Regardless, Mr. Chairman, of the fate of the home rule legislation, I have felt that the people resident at this national seat of government, will never be admitted to true or full citizenship in their country until they are given voting representation in their sovereign Government, the Government of the United States of America, and the weight of legal authority seems to be that amendment of the Constitution is a prerequisite to giving these men and women such basic rights and responsibilities. I had the honor to be associated with the late Hatton W. Sumners, of Texas, the distinguished chairman for so many years of the House Committee on the Judiciary. We jointly sponsored an amendment to the Constitution which, with some differences of approach, seeks the objective of the resolution now before this subcommittee and the Senate. That resolution took the form of an enabling amendment, giving the Congress the power to provide that there shall be in the Congress, and among the electors of President, a Vice President, members elected by the people of the district constituting the seat of government in such members and with such powers as the Congress shall determine. It is interesting to recall that while this resolution received a favorable report from the House Judiciary Committee, it was amended in the committee to provide only for representation in the House of Representatives. It failed to clear the Rules Committee, however, and never came to a vote in the House, and I believe had it come to a vote in the House it would have been approved at that time. At this point, Mr. Chairman, I would like to insert a portion of the testimony I was privileged to give on February 14, 1945, in support of another resolution for a constitutional amendment, also sponsored by Judge Summers and myself. Some of the thoughts expressed at that time are even more applicable now than they were then. I ask unanimous consent to have those remarks included in my statement. Senator KEFAUVER. Without objection they will be included; the remarks will be included. (The information referred to is as follows:) I think that almost the closing comment of Judge Sumners would indicate what the District of Columbia Committee membership feels about this subject. He said that he would like someone in the District of Columbia elected and responsible to the citizenship here who could actually be a spokesman on the floor of the House or in both bodies. That is a very true statement. You must remember that the members of the House and Senate District Committees who are charged with the consideration, initiation, and all of the phases of local affairs in our Congress-that these men and women are giving of their time liberally. They are giving of their time to a subject matter for which they have not directly been elected by their own districts or their own States. I feel, therefore, very keenly that there should be in the Congress of the United States, in both the House and the Senate, someone directly charged by the bona fide residents of the District of Columbia with that responsibility to speak for the interests here. I think it not inappropriate to say that I have been a member of the House District Committee for 12 years. For approximately half of that number of years I have been its chairman. I feel that I speak not for myself so much as I speak for those who have joined with me in saying that we have given of our time in a way that in practically every occasion has hindered our relationship to the people of our own congressional districts and States. It matters not what we do or what we say, there is a feeling throughout the country that at Washington, D.C., we were elected to speak for our own people, in a narrow sense, and then nationally, and that our time and our talents should not be given so much to an actual operation of the functions of local government at the National Capital. If I might disagree with the judge-and it is not a disagreement-he said that it was necessary, in his opinion, to "sell" this resolution to the country. I do not believe that it is necessary to "sell" it to the Nation. I feel that the country welcomes the opportunity, through the processes that would be set in motion by the passage of this resolution, to give to voteless Washington exactly what Judge Sumners and others desire to be given. I do not believe it is necessary to sell it to the Congress. Someone might say that such a statement is incorrect, but I believe there would not be 50 votes in the House of Representatives against the pending resolution, if it is brought to the floor, debated, and then passed upon with a rollcall. I have no criticism of what has been done in the past on this subject. Many good men have gone into this matter throughout the years. It is fortunate that in the House Judge Sumners, a keen legal mind, a student of government, a legislator with long experience, has found it desirable in his heart to espouse this cause. The same could be said with equal force of the veteran legislator from Kansas, Senator Capper, in the other body. I have this criticism: In 1940 the Democratic Party national platform adopted in Chicago favored suffrage for the District of Columbia. Following that action there was passed out of your very splendid committee, Judge, the proper legislation. That resolution was stymied in the Rules Committee of the House. I am not discussing now the reasons the Committee on Rules did or did not act on this proposition. I only say that on that occasion-in 1940-the Judiciary Committee of the House had spoken favorably on this measure, and it should have come to the floor of the Congress then, not years later. I remember-and if this should be stricken from the record later I would want the judge to do so and I am sure we will all understand the colloquy-that I asked Judge Sumners in 1940, after his committee had correctly acted, and after there was the delay in the Rules Committee and nothing was done, if he as the author would not place a discharge petition upon the Speaker's desk. I realized that such was not the preferable method of bringing legislation to the floor. I believed, however, the time was overdue when the membership of the House, having no opportunity to act upon a measure which had been reported by a committee, on which there had been so much discussion over a period of years, should have the chance, in the House itself, to debate this subject and to cast its vote. I remember that Judge Sumners said that he had always felt that the orderly procedure of bringing legislation to the floor was desirable. I could well understand his feeling. And perhaps he continues to hold to that view. But I say to you, as for myself, speaking only as an individual, I believe that if this committee, through a subcommittee and then the full committee, acts again as it did in 1940, that the proponents of this resolution and the friends who believe in the cause will not be worthy to longer carry the banner if we do not bring it to the floor of the Congress of the United States. Of course, when I say "carry the banner" I mean, we should allow that discharge petition, if it is necessary, to be placed upon the Speaker's desk. The 218 necessary signatures would then, if possible, be affixed and the bill brought to the floor, and if brought there it will pass. When the word goes to the country, the Nation will approve. That is my own humble, yet considered, opinion on this subject. Senator RANDOLPH. It was also an honor to testify before this committee, Mr. Chairman, on substantially the same resolution in 1941. Within a few days Premier Khrushchev will be a visitor here. It is ironical that the people of this city, the capital of the United States, have less voice in their government than the people of Moscow. For even in the Soviet Union, as I said in the Senate recently during debate, there is an election, or an election process, which is conducted for the people. Even the electorate of that country can vote for one party or for one so-called slate of candidates. In the District of Columbia, however, men and women who were born here, men and women who have lived their lives within this Federal jurisdiction, have no opportunity to vote and cannot exercise the responsibility of the franchise for either the President or the Vice President of the United States. That, Mr. Chairman, is wrong. Time is catching up with our failure to have remedied this defect in the majestic pattern of our representative government. We have recently welcomed to full sovereign statehood Alaska and Hawaii. Their admission to the Union was the subject of countless congratulatory statements by Members of this Congress. We now have four new colleagues in the Senate, and two new Members of the House of Representatives from these two new States. Is it not a strange paradox in the affairs of our country, which includes the 160,000 civilians of Alaska represented in Congress by 2 Senators and 1 Representative, that embraces the civilian population of Hawaii, with some 585,000 people, represented by 2 Senators and 1 Representative, while the approximately 850,000 Americans living in the capital of the United States, a population exceeding the combined populations of Alaska and Hawaii, have no Senator and no Representative in this Congress. Alaskans and Hawaiians will now cast their votes in the choice of a President and a Vice President of the United States. Here in Washington there are no voters on election day, because they have no right to vote, and that, Mr. Chairman, is wrong. I have felt for many years that the Members of Congress must send forth legislation which can be submitted to States as a proposed constitutional amendment granting to the people of Washington the coveted opportunity and significant responsibility of exercising the franchise of freedom and of citizenship. Mr. Chairman, I do not wish to wave a flag or to be dramatic, but to indicate to you, the devoted chairman of this subcommittee, charged with a solemn responsibility, that there is perhaps within this country the seeds of a dictatorship if we fail to exercise the responsibilities and the duties of citizenship. Very frankly, we could drift into a dictatorship almost without knowing that it was in progress, because our people will fail to discharge this duty of using intelligently and devotedly the American ballot. I think it is important to say that in a democracy-and I do not speak of partisanship-we could lose it by default. And certainly a small percentage of our voting population, those who are eligible to cast their ballots, staying at home on election days, is not conducive to representative government. Yes, there could be a forfeiture of our freedom. Freedom is well expressed by the use of this constituted American ballot so precious to those of us who live in the States. But we continue to deny to the people who are legal residents of the District of Columbia, and cannot under the law qualify elsewhere, these processes of citizenship. 49566-603 |