The Twenty-Third Amendment

For 160 years after the District of Columbia was established as the nation's capital, its residents could not vote for President. The original Constitution provided that electors would be chosen "in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct" by each State, and the District is not a State. Citizens who moved to the District lost their presidential vote at the moment they crossed the city line. By 1960, more than 750,000 people lived in the District, more than the populations of several states. The disenfranchisement of so large a population at the seat of the federal government had become a recurring civic embarrassment.

The Twenty-Third Amendment was proposed by Congress in June 1960 and ratified by the required three-fourths of the states in March 1961. The relevant text reads: "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." Under the cap, the District today receives three electoral votes, matching the smallest state delegations.

The amendment did not make the District a state, nor did it grant Congressional representation. District residents elect a non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives and have no senators. The amendment addressed only the presidential vote. Three electoral votes have been cast by the District in every presidential election since 1964. Proposals to grant the District full congressional representation or to admit it as a state have surfaced repeatedly. None has succeeded. The Twenty-Third Amendment remains the only constitutional answer to the question of how the residents of the federal city should participate in selecting the federal government.