Constitution
The Twenty-third Amendment: Electors for the District of Columbia
The Twenty-third Amendment gives the District of Columbia presidential electors, no more than the least populous state has, but no vote in Congress.
The text
Passed by Congress June 16, 1960. Ratified March 29, 1961.
Section 1.
The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct:
A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment.
Section 2.
The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
In plain English
Section 1. The District that serves as the seat of government "shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct" a number of presidential electors equal to the number it would have if it were a state, but not more than the least populous state. Under that rule, the District has three electors.
The District's electors are "in addition to those appointed by the States" but considered, for the purposes of presidential elections, to be appointed by a state. They meet in the District and follow the 12th Amendment's procedures.
Section 2. Congress has power to enforce the Amendment.
What it does not do. It does not make the District a state or give it voting representation in Congress. The District has a non-voting delegate in the House and no representation in the Senate. The Constitution's Article I, Section 8 gives Congress "exclusive Legislation" over the District, and the Amendment leaves that in place.
It was ratified on March 29, 1961, in time for the 1964 election.
What the Founders said
The Founders created the District as a federal seat precisely so that the national government would not depend on any state for its safety. The idea followed an incident in 1783, when soldiers from the Continental Army surrounded the Congress meeting in Philadelphia, and the Pennsylvania authorities declined to protect it. In Federalist No. 43, Madison defended the exclusive federal authority over the seat of government as indispensable.
At the time, the District had few residents, and the question of its representation was not at issue. By 1960, it had over 760,000 people, more than a dozen states, and its residents had no vote for President.
Several proposals during the 20th century sought to provide representation. The Twenty-third Amendment was the modest one that succeeded; broader proposals, including the 1978 D.C. Voting Rights Amendment, failed to win ratification.
How the courts have read it
- Adams v. Clinton (D.D.C. 2000): a three-judge court rejected a claim that D.C. residents have a constitutional right to voting representation in Congress, and the Supreme Court summarily affirmed.
- Banner v. United States (D.C. Cir. 2005): the court held that the District has no right to congressional representation under the Constitution.
The Supreme Court has not interpreted the Twenty-third Amendment in a major case.
Why it matters now
The District of Columbia raises a real question about representation, and conservatives take different views. Some argue that residents of the District should have the vote in Congress, either through a retrocession of most of the District to Maryland, as happened with Virginia's portion in 1846, or through a constitutional amendment. Others point out that the District was designed as a federal enclave, and that statehood for the District would require either an amendment or at least a serious constitutional argument.
The text offers some guidance. The Founders defended exclusive federal jurisdiction as protection for the national government. A conservative reading of Article I, Section 8 and the 23rd Amendment suggests that granting the District statehood through ordinary legislation is at least constitutionally doubtful, since the Amendment itself assumed the District would remain a federal seat. Whatever one's view, any change should follow the path the Constitution prescribes.
The Amendment also reflects the American pattern of addressing particular problems through targeted amendments, instead of rethinking the whole structure at once.