Jim Sensenbrenner: “the Judiciary Committee is supposed to be the legislative guardian of the Constitution. Unfortunately in this instance…”

“the Judiciary Committee is supposed to be the legislative guardian of the Constitution. Unfortunately in this instance, the majority gets an F. This bill is fraught with constitutional questions. All I need to do is to go back to the report that was issued by then- Chairman Peter Rodino, a Democratic and a liberal icon, when he reported out a constitutional amendment enfranchising the District of Columbia in 1978. That committee report clearly said that giving a vote to the representative of the District of Columbia in this House could not be done statutorily. And that is exactly what is happening today. And not only can't it be done statutorily, but the Rules Committee last night played a partisan card. It rejected all proposed amendments, including constructive amendments that eliminate some of the legal and constitutional problems relating to the at-large seat in Utah, as well as an amendment offered by my friend from Texas (Mr. Smith) to have an expedited review of the United States Supreme Court, a review that we gave to the McCain- Feingold law on campaign finance. There are constitutional questions on this issue. And in the year 2000, the Federal court of D.C. expressly said that, ``We conclude from our analysis that the text of the Constitution does not contemplate that the District may serve as a State for purposes of apportionment of congressional representatives.'' That case was Adams v. Clinton that was decided in the year 2000.”