Module 36: The Twenty-Third Amendment

A Capital Without Electors

For its first 170 years the District of Columbia had no part in choosing a President. The Twenty-Third Amendment, ratified in 1961, gave the District three electoral votes, and that is all it gave. To understand why the grant was small and how it was shaped, start with the clause that created the District.

The Seat of Government Clause

Article I, Section 8 gives Congress the power "[t]o exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States."¹ The clause says who governs the District and does not say who represents it. Two essays in the National Constitution Center's collection take up the silence. Aderson Francois of Georgetown, who argues that District residents remain a lesser class of citizens, writes that the Convention adopted the clause without recorded debate on its effects on the "voting, representation or any other rights" of inhabitants, a phrase he takes from Judge Oberdorfer's opinion in Adams v. Clinton (D.D.C. 2000). John Baker, who argues for a different view, uses the same clause to argue that "no one State should be home to and legislate for and have power over the capital of all the States."²

Residents who once voted

Francois points out that residents did not lose all political rights at the start. After Virginia and Maryland ceded land and the boundaries were drawn in 1791, he writes, District residents "continued to vote for members of the House representing Virginia and Maryland." That lasted about a decade, until Congress adopted the Organic Act of 1801 and took full authority over the District. Congress had passed the Residence Act in July 1790, which fixed the location and size of the District.²

The Constitution Center essays say that the District has been treated as a State for some purposes and not others. Baker writes that Alexandria County was retroceded to Virginia in 1846 and 1847. A research summary adds that by 1878 Congress had placed executive power over the District in a three-member Board of Commissioners, which remained until the 1960s.²³

Chief Justice Marshall on taxes and representation

In Loughborough v. Blake, 18 U.S. (5 Wheat.) 317 (1820), the Court unanimously held that Congress could lay a direct tax within the District. Chief Justice John Marshall wrote that "in theory it might be more congenial to the spirit of our institutions to admit a representative from the district," but added that "certainly the constitution does not consider their want of a representative in Congress as exempting it from equal taxation."⁴ The passage shows that the lack of a representative was noticed in 1820 and was not treated as a bar to taxation.

The population argument by 1960

By 1960 the District was large. House Report No. 1698, which accompanied the amendment, stated that the District, "with more than 800,000 people, has a greater number of persons than the population of each of 13 of our States," and that its citizens had "all the obligations of citizenship, including the payment of Federal taxes, of local taxes, and service in our Armed Forces," while being unable to vote in national elections "because the Constitution has restricted that privilege to citizens who reside in States."⁵ A research summary gives the 1960 population as about 750,000, and this lesson did not check either figure against the census. Both descriptions, in any case, put the District above the population of several States.³

Before the amendment, according to Baker, District residents were in the same position as citizens living in a foreign country or Puerto Rico: they could not vote for presidential electors unless they were registered to vote in a State.²

The Text of the Amendment

"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."

U.S. Const. amend. XXIII (Constitution Annotated, Cornell LII edition)

The National Constitution Center's page dates it: "Passed by Congress June 16, 1960. Ratified March 29, 1961."⁶

Reading Section 1 clause by clause

• "shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct": The District, unlike a State, has no legislature of its own to choose the manner of appointment. Article II says that each State appoints electors "in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct,"¹ and the amendment gives the same power over the District's electors to Congress.
• "equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives . . . to which the District would be entitled if it were a State": This sets the formula, the same one that Article II uses for States, namely two for the Senators plus the number of Representatives.
• "but in no event more than the least populous State": This is the cap. It means the District can never have more electors than the smallest State.
• "in addition to those appointed by the States": The District's electors are added to the total. The total number of electors, 538, includes them.⁷
• "considered . . . to be electors appointed by a State": For all purposes of the election of President and Vice President, the District's electors count as State electors.
• "meet in the District": They cast their ballots at the seat of government and "perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment."

Section 2 gives Congress the power to enforce the article "by appropriate legislation," the same phrase that appears in the enforcement clauses of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Module 10, The Civil War Amendments, covers those amendments.

What the text does not do

The amendment grants no seats in the House or the Senate. The Constitution Annotated reproduces the House Report's statement that the amendment "would change the Constitution only to the minimum extent necessary to give the District appropriate participation in national elections. It would not make the District of Columbia a State. It would not give the District of Columbia any other attributes of a State or change the constitutional powers of the Congress to legislate with respect to the District of Columbia and to prescribe its form of government."⁵ Both of the Constitution Center essays agree on that limit: Baker and Francois each say it neither grants statehood nor representation in Congress.²

How Congress Put the Amendment Together

The amendment's path through Congress was unusual. It began as one of three proposals bundled in a different amendment and passed only after it was split from the others.

A three-part amendment in the Senate

A research summary from EBSCO's Research Starters, written by William V. Moore, says that in 1959 Senator Estes Kefauver introduced an amendment to staff Congress in an emergency, with state governors filling mass vacancies after a nuclear attack. On the Senate floor, two further provisions were added: Senator Spessard Holland's proposal to abolish the poll tax and Senator Kenneth Keating's proposal to give District residents representation in the Electoral College and the House. The Senate passed the three-part amendment 70 to 18, with a provision that any part could be ratified independently.³ Wikipedia dates the Senate vote February 2, 1960 and gives the same count.⁸

Chairman Celler splits the package

The summary reports that House Judiciary Committee Chairman Emanuel Celler concluded that the three-part version could not pass the full House and decided to consider the parts separately. He took up the District's electoral votes first. To reduce opposition, he dropped the proposal for congressional representation for the District, and he added the provision that the District would receive no more electoral votes than the least populous State.³

On June 14, 1960, the House approved the revised amendment by voice vote, and on June 16, 1960, the Senate adopted it, also by voice vote, according to the summary and to Wikipedia.³⁸ The National Constitution Center essay gives June 16, 1960 as the date Congress passed the amendment. The Statutes at Large reproduce the joint resolution as the Twenty-Third Amendment's proposal to the States.²⁹

The Reagan Library's account says that the proposal was endorsed by President Eisenhower and notes that, because Alaska and Hawaii had been admitted in 1959, the number of States was fifty and the amendment needed thirty-eight to ratify.¹⁰

What the House Report said it was for

House Report No. 1698 explained the purpose of the amendment as providing "the citizens of the District of Columbia with appropriate rights of voting in national elections for President and Vice President," and said the amendment "would, however, perpetuate recognition of the unique status of the District as the seat of Federal Government under the exclusive legislative control of Congress."⁵ The report fits the cap. Congress meant to give the District a vote in presidential elections and to keep it, in every other way, under congressional control.

Ratification, 1960 to 1961

The States ratified the amendment in nine months and twelve days, according to Wikipedia. The dates below come from the Wikipedia ratification list, used at secondhand because this lesson did not find a single official table online, and they are checked in part against the General Services Administration's certificate in the Statutes at Large.⁸⁹

The pace of ratification

Hawaii ratified first, on June 23, 1960, a week after Congress acted, and Massachusetts followed on August 22, 1960. New Jersey ratified on December 19, 1960. Most of the other States acted in the early months of 1961: New York on January 17, California on January 19, Oregon on January 27 and Maryland on January 30. Then came Idaho, Maine and Minnesota, all on January 31. By March 29, 1961 the count reached thirty-eight, with Kansas and Ohio acting that day. The National Constitution Center essay and the Reagan Library both name Ohio as the thirty-eighth State and give the date as March 29, 1961.⁸²¹⁰

The Minnesota House Journal for January 31, 1961 records the vote there: Senate File No. 5, "a resolution ratifying a proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America granting representation in the electoral college to the District of Columbia," passed the House on a roll call of 123 yeas and 0 nays.¹¹

Certification

The Administrator of General Services certified the amendment. The certificate, printed in the Statutes at Large at 75 Stat. 847, is dated April 3, 1961. It recites the text of the joint resolution, lists the ratifying legislatures, finds that they "constitute the requisite three-fourths of the whole number of States," and certifies that the amendment "has become valid, to all intents and purposes, as a part of the Constitution of the United States." It is signed by John L. Moore, Administrator of General Services.⁹

The certificate lists thirty-nine States, one more than the thirty-eight needed. The extra State is New Hampshire, which, according to Wikipedia, ratified on March 30, 1961, the day after Ohio. Idaho is among the States named.⁹⁸

Who did not ratify

According to Wikipedia, Arkansas rejected the amendment on January 24, 1961, and nine States never acted in 1961: Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana, Texas, North Carolina and Virginia. Wikipedia also reports that Alabama ratified much later, on April 11, 2002, which this lesson has not verified from an original source.⁸ The EBSCO summary says that none of the States of the old Confederacy ratified and that only Arkansas considered the amendment. That statement conflicts with the certificate, which lists Tennessee, and with Wikipedia's list, which dates Tennessee's ratification March 6, 1961. This lesson follows the certificate.³⁹

The Cap: "In No Event More Than the Least Populous State"

The clause that limits the District's electors to the number held by the smallest State was added by Chairman Celler to reduce opposition in the House.³ The numbers show how it works today.

Three electors for the District

The National Archives says that under the Twenty-Third Amendment, "the District of Columbia is allocated three electors and treated like a State for purposes of the Electoral College." Each State's allocation is two for its Senators plus the number of its Representatives, and the allocations based on the 2020 Census apply to the 2024 and 2028 elections.⁷ The Archives' table shows three electoral votes for Alaska, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, Wyoming and the District. The total of 538 electors includes the District's three.⁷

The census figures

The Census Bureau's 2020 counts of resident population put the District between the smallest States. Wyoming, the least populous State, had 576,851 residents. Vermont had 643,077, the District of Columbia 689,545 and Alaska 733,391.¹² The District therefore has more people than Wyoming and Vermont, which each have one Representative and two Senators and so three electors, and fewer than Alaska, which also has three.

What the cap does

The cap is a ceiling. However the "if it were a State" formula would apportion the District, it can never have more electors than the least populous State, which has three today. This lesson did not run an apportionment calculation for the District and relies on the Archives for the statement that the District has three. It also did not check earlier decades, and so it does not say whether the cap limited the District's number in any year before 2020.⁷

Section 2 and the 1961 Statute

Section 1 left the manner of appointing the District's electors to Congress. Congress used its power under both sections, six months after ratification, in Public Law 87-389, approved October 4, 1961 (75 Stat. 817).¹³

How the 1961 Act set up the vote

The Act amended a 1955 District law on elections. As the Statutes at Large print it, the 1961 Act provided that:

• presidential electors would be elected on the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November in every fourth year;
• each vote for a presidential candidate whose name appeared on the ballot "shall be counted as a vote cast for the candidates for presidential electors of the party supporting such presidential and vice presidential candidate," and the candidates receiving the highest number of votes would be declared the winners;
• the names of the persons nominated as electors would not appear on the ballot;
• no one could be elected an elector unless registered to vote in the District and "a bona fide resident of the District for a period of three years" before the election, and each elector had to take an oath "that he will vote for the candidates of the party he has been nominated to represent," a duty to vote in that manner being set out in the Act.¹³

The statute thus made the District's vote a winner-take-all contest, with electors who were pledged by oath to their party's candidates. This lesson read the 1961 text and did not review the current provisions of the D.C. Code, which have changed over the years.

Treating the District as a State

Section 2 of the 1961 Act added section 21 to chapter 1 of title 3 of the United States Code, which today defines terms for the federal presidential election statutes. Its present text says: "'State' includes the District of Columbia." In the same section, "'executive' means, with respect to any State, the Governor of the State (or, in the case of the District of Columbia, the Mayor of the District of Columbia)." Congress amended it in 2022 in Public Law 117-328 (the Electoral Count Reform Act); the 1961 version had referred to the Board of Commissioners.¹⁴¹³ The practical effect is that the District's certification of its electors follows the same federal procedures as a State's, with the Mayor in the role of the Governor. Idaho's own statute gives the equivalent job to its governor and secretary of state, as the Idaho section below shows.

The same Act, in its third section, also barred the sale of alcoholic beverages on presidential election day in the District during the hours when the polls were open, except by holders of one class of retail license. That provision is a historical curiosity, and it connects to module 34, The Twenty-First Amendment.¹³

The first election

The Reagan Library's blog shows the official ballot for District voters in the 1964 presidential election, "the first one conducted under the Twenty-third Amendment."¹⁰

What the Amendment Did Not Give

The amendment gave presidential electors and nothing else. The National Constitution Center's essay by John Baker states the limits: it "neither grants the District statehood, nor does it provide residents with representation in the Senate or the House of Representatives," though Congress has by statute allowed the District to elect a nonvoting delegate to the House. The essay adds that, under the 1973 Home Rule Act, Congress allowed the District to elect a Mayor and a Council.² The EBSCO summary dates the nonvoting delegate to 1970.³

The 1978 attempt

In 1978 Congress proposed a second amendment for the District. House Joint Resolution 554 of the 95th Congress, printed at 92 Stat. 3795, provided in Section 1 that "[f]or purposes of representation in the Congress, election of the President and Vice President, and article V of this Constitution, the District constituting the seat of government of the United States shall be treated as though it were a State." Section 3 provided that "[t]he twenty-third article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed," and Section 4 set the seven-year ratification deadline. The legislative history printed with it shows that the House considered and passed it on March 1 and 2, 1978 and the Senate on August 16, 17, 21 and 22, 1978.¹⁵

The EBSCO summary gives the votes as 289 to 127 in the House and 67 to 32 in the Senate, "barely achieving the two-thirds majority."³ The National Constitution Center essay and the summary agree that only sixteen of the thirty-eight States needed ratified before the deadline expired.²³ Wikipedia gives the dates of submission and expiration as August 22, 1978 and August 22, 1985.⁸ The failed amendment is the reason that any later plan to change the District's status has had to decide what to do with the Twenty-Third Amendment.

The Debate Over the Amendment's Reach

The Twenty-Third Amendment is rarely attacked, but it is the start of a long argument about the District's place in the Union. The National Constitution Center's collection pairs two essays that take opposite views of that argument. They agree on the amendment's limits and disagree about whether those limits are fair.

The argument that residents remain disenfranchised

Aderson Francois, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center who is listed with its civil rights law clinic, writes that two points matter most. The first, borrowed from Representative Jamie Raskin, is that "we are the only nation on earth that disenfranchises the people of its capital city." Francois adds that the arrangement is neither "a natural consequence of our federated political structure" nor the intent of the Framers. His second point is that District residents were not always in this position, since they voted for members representing Virginia and Maryland for roughly a decade.²

He makes a comparative claim as well. He counts at least 24 of the world's 193 countries as federal systems, finds that eleven of them follow the federal-district model, and says that in every one of the eleven but the United States "residents of the capital enjoy full political franchise and legislative representation." He also takes on the textual argument that House representation belongs only to residents of a "state" under Article I. In his view the Framers' use of the word "States" reflects their wish to set up a national government by the people of the several States, and not a plan to disenfranchise the people who live in the District. He calls the present arrangement "quasi-colonial."²

The argument that the District has a privileged status

John Baker, a visiting professor at Georgetown Law and professor emeritus at Louisiana State University, calls the amendment "the proverbial 'camel's nose in the tent,' with the tent being statehood for the District of Columbia," and argues that both the amendment and the case for statehood rest on a "false premise." He gives four reasons: that before 1961 the District's citizens were treated the same as citizens in Puerto Rico or abroad; that since the amendment they have had "undue weight in the Electoral College"; that the capital enjoys advantages no State has; and that "[n]o one State should be home to and legislate for and have power over the capital of all the States."²

On the weight argument, Baker compares the District's population, which he gives as 672,228 in 2015, with the population per House seat after the 2010 census, about 710,767. He notes that two States, Vermont and Wyoming, had fewer than 700,000 people and still had a Representative because the Constitution guarantees each State one. He argues that the District gets "very special treatment" like those States, though it "lacks the status of statehood." He also says that even if the District deserved one electoral vote by population, "it does not deserve the two electoral votes attributable to statehood," because the two Senate-based votes rest on "the residual sovereignty of each State."²

Where the two essays meet

Both essays say what the amendment is and is not. It lets District residents vote for electors. It does not make the District a State and does not give it voting seats in Congress.² The essays disagree about whether that is the right place to stop. This lesson takes no side in the disagreement and offers the numbers in the visuals section so that readers can check the claims against the census and the National Archives.

Statehood Bills, the Compact and the Amendment Today

This section records what the sources show as of October 18, 2026. It reports proposals and does not predict their fate.

H.R. 51 in the 119th Congress

The Government Publishing Office's text of H.R. 51 of the 119th Congress shows that it was introduced in the House on January 3, 2025, by Ms. Norton "for herself, Mr. Jeffries" and many others, with the title "To provide for the admission of the State of Washington, D.C. into the Union." Section 101 declares "the State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth" to be a State "admitted into the Union on an equal footing with the other States." Under section 111, the State would consist of the District's territory except a portion described in section 112, which "shall be known as the 'Capital' and shall serve as the seat of the Government of the United States," including "the principal Federal monuments, the White House, the Capitol Building, the United States Supreme Court Building" and adjacent federal office buildings.¹⁶

The bill touches the electoral statutes in two places. Section 223 amends 3 U.S.C. section 21 by striking the paragraph that provides that "State" includes the District and the words about the Mayor, effective on admission and applicable "to any election of the President and Vice President taking place on or after such date." Section 224 is titled "Expedited procedures for consideration of constitutional amendment repealing 23rd amendment." It describes a joint resolution "proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States to repeal the 23rd article of amendment," places it on the House and Senate calendars on introduction, and sets time limits and procedures for floor consideration in each house, including 10 hours of debate in the House and not more than 30 hours in the Senate.¹⁶

Section 224 does not repeal the amendment. Only the Article V process can do that, and the section sets rules for how each house would consider a resolution. The bill's text does not explain why the section is there. A natural reading is that the amendment still refers to "[t]he District constituting the seat of Government of the United States," which under the bill would be the Capital, and so would still carry a right to appoint electors until repealed. That reading is this lesson's own and not a quotation from the bill or its sponsors. This lesson could not read the bill's status on Congress.gov, and it did not confirm any committee or floor action in the 119th Congress.¹⁶

Earlier statehood votes

According to Wikipedia, the House passed an earlier H.R. 51 on June 26, 2020, 232 to 180, and again on April 22, 2021, 216 to 208, and a Senate companion, S. 51, was introduced on January 26, 2021 with 38 cosponsors. The article says that Senator Joe Manchin announced his opposition on April 30, 2021 and that this effectively doomed the bills. These items are secondhand, and this lesson did not read the roll calls.¹⁷

Why the route matters

The two routes to changing the District's status have used different tools. The 1978 attempt, H.J. Res. 554, was a constitutional amendment that included repeal of the Twenty-Third Amendment in its text and failed in the States.¹⁵ H.R. 51 proceeds by statute for admission and, in section 224, sets up procedures for a later amendment resolution. Whether Congress may admit the District's residential area as a State by statute while the Constitution's seat-of-government clause remains is disputed. This lesson cites no authority on that question and takes no position on it.

The National Popular Vote compact

The Twenty-Third Amendment treats District electors as State electors, so the District's three electoral votes count toward the total of any plan that works by State action. The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, whose sponsor's website this lesson read, says it has been "enacted by 18 states and DC," together holding 222 of the 270 electoral votes needed to activate it. The site's list of enacting jurisdictions does not include Idaho. Wikipedia reports that the D.C. Council adopted the compact in 2010 as D.C. Law 18-274.¹⁸⁸ The sponsor is an advocacy group, and this lesson did not verify its figures against State statutes. The compact's merits and constitutionality are debated and are outside this lesson.

Myths and Misreadings

Questions Students Ask

Do the District's electors have to vote for the winner of the District's popular vote?

The 1961 Act required each elector to take an oath to vote for the candidates of the party that nominated him or her and made it his or her duty to do so. This lesson did not read the current D.C. Code on elector pledges. The Supreme Court held in Chiafalo v. Washington (2020) that a State may enforce an elector's pledge, and the Twenty-Third Amendment treats the District's electors as State electors for the purposes of the election.¹³¹⁹

Why does the Twelfth Amendment get mentioned?

The amendment says the District's electors "shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment." That ties them to the same separate ballots for President and Vice President as other electors.⁵

Could the District's electors be chosen some way other than a popular vote?

The text says the District appoints "in such manner as the Congress may direct." Congress chose popular election in 1961, and the text leaves the choice to Congress. This lesson found no case that tests the limits of that power.⁵¹³

Was the amendment ever applied by a court?

This lesson found no Supreme Court case interpreting the Twenty-Third Amendment. The cases in the table that follows concern the District's status and the appointment of electors generally.

Landmark Cases

The Supreme Court has not decided a case that interprets the Twenty-Third Amendment, as far as this lesson found. The table lists the decisions that set the background: the District's status, Congress's power over it, and the power over electors. They are in date order, and the footnotes show which were read in the Court's own text.

The Idaho Connection

Idaho ratified on January 31, 1961

The Idaho Legislature ratified the Twenty-Third Amendment in its 1961 session by House Joint Resolution No. 3, "[r]atifying the proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America relating to the granting of representation in the Electoral College to the District of Columbia." The session law reproduces the proposed article and ends with "Passed by the House January 20, 1961" and "Passed by the Senate January 31, 1961." The scanned text of the session law reads the Senate day as "81," which this lesson takes to be a misreading of 31 because Wikipedia's ratification list gives Idaho's date as January 31, 1961.²⁰⁸

Wikipedia's list puts Idaho eighth, with Maine and Minnesota acting on the same day, so the order within January 31 is not certain. Idaho is among the States named in the General Services Administration's certificate of April 3, 1961.⁸⁹ This lesson did not find the roll call counts in Idaho's House or Senate. They would be in the legislative journals for 1961, which were not located online.

Idaho's four electors

Under the National Archives' table of allocations based on the 2020 Census, Idaho has four electoral votes, for the 2024 and 2028 elections.⁷ Idaho's resident population in 2020 was 1,839,106, according to the Census Bureau, or about 460,000 for each of its four electors.¹² The District's 689,545 residents have three electors, or about 230,000 for each. The numbers are in the visuals section, along with the comparison to the other three-elector jurisdictions.

Presidential electors under Idaho Code

Idaho's own statutes on electors are in Title 34, Chapter 15 of the Idaho Code, and they run in parallel to the amendment in ways that show what the District does differently.

• Section 34-1502 provides for an election "for the election of such electors, at the times appointed by any law of the Congress or the Constitution of the United States."
• Section 34-1501 directs the secretary of state to prepare certificates of the electors' names, to obtain the governor's signature and to deliver the certificates on or before the second Wednesday in December.
• Section 34-1503 provides that the electors meet "at the seat of government of this state" at noon on the day Congress directs and "perform the duties enjoined upon them by the Constitution and laws of the United States." The amendment has the District's electors meet "in the District."
• Sections 34-1504 to 34-1506 provide for electors who fail to appear by nine o'clock on the morning of the vote: the electors present fill vacancies by ballot, in the presence of the governor, and a tie is decided by lot.^21222324

In Idaho the Legislature has set these rules. For the District, Congress sets them, and the 1961 Act provides that the executive committee of each qualifying party's recognized District organization nominates that party's presidential electors, by message to the Board of Elections.¹³

Idaho and the Compact

The National Popular Vote website's list of jurisdictions that have enacted its compact does not include Idaho.¹⁸ This lesson did not search the Idaho Legislature's records for a bill on the subject.

Idaho cases

This lesson did not find an Idaho appellate decision interpreting the Twenty-Third Amendment. Its search of Idaho decisions was limited because the research budget ended. Treat the absence as unconfirmed.

Where This Shows Up for Officials, Reporters and Citizens

The reporter writing about District voting

Say "presidential electors," not "voting rights," when describing what the Twenty-Third Amendment does. The District has three electoral votes and no voting member of the House or Senate. A nonvoting delegate exists by statute. When a story says the District is "treated like a State," note that the phrase comes from a federal election statute and from the amendment's text, which treats the District's electors as State electors "for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President."⁵¹⁴

The state or county election official

Federal presidential-election procedures for certificates and ascertainment are written for States, and 3 U.S.C. section 21 provides that "State" includes the District of Columbia and that the District's executive is its Mayor. In Idaho the corresponding duties belong to the secretary of state and the governor under the Idaho Code. This lesson did not research current District practice.¹⁴²¹

The citizen in a statehood or compact debate

Two different questions are often confused. One is how the District's three electors are counted, which the amendment settles. The other is whether the District's status should change by statute or by a new amendment, or whether electors should be pooled by a compact. Ask which question a speaker is answering. A change to the amendment itself needs the Article V process, and the current statehood bill, H.R. 51, includes procedures for such an amendment in section 224.¹⁶

The teacher or student

Compare the amendment's text with Article II's text on how States appoint electors. Two differences stand out: Congress, not a legislature, directs the manner, and the cap ties the District's number to the smallest State's.¹

The Idaho legislator or voter asked about a compact or an amendment

Idaho ratified in 1961 by a joint resolution and, under Article V, would be asked again if Congress proposed a new amendment about the District. The list of jurisdictions in the National Popular Vote compact does not include Idaho.²⁰¹⁸

Related Modules

Module 2, Article I: Congress (the Seat of Government Clause); Module 3, Article II: The President (how States appoint electors); Module 6, Amending the Constitution (Article V); Module 14, Article IV: The States and the Union (admission of new States); Module 26, The Twelfth Amendment (electors' ballots); Module 35, The Twenty-Second Amendment (the previous amendment); and Module 37, The Twenty-Fourth Amendment (the next amendment, on the poll tax).

Sources & Further Reading

Primary Sources

• National Archives, The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription (Article I, Section 8, Clause 17; Article II, Section 1)
• National Archives, Electoral College allocation of electors
• 75 Stat. 847, certificate of ratification of the Twenty-Third Amendment
• Pub. L. 87-389, 75 Stat. 817 (Oct. 4, 1961)
• 3 U.S.C. section 21, Definitions
• H.J. Res. 554, 92 Stat. 3795 (1978)
• H.R. 51, 119th Congress, as introduced (Government Publishing Office)
• Idaho Session Laws (1961), H.J.R. No. 3
• Idaho Code, Title 34, Chapter 15 (Presidential Electors)
• Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, ratifications of U.S. constitutional amendments (journal pages)
• Census Bureau, 2020 apportionment resident population tables

Supreme Court and Federal Opinions

• Loughborough v. Blake, 18 U.S. (5 Wheat.) 317 (1820)
• Chiafalo v. Washington, 591 U.S. 578 (2020)

Secondary Sources and Further Reading

• National Constitution Center, 23rd Amendment
• National Constitution Center, Interpretation: The Twenty-Third Amendment
• Constitution Annotated, Amendment XXIII: Overview
• Reagan Library blog, Amendment XXIII: Extending the Vote to the District of Columbia
• EBSCO Research Starters, District of Columbia Receives Representation in Presidential Elections
• National Popular Vote (an advocacy site; its claims are flagged in the text)
• Wikipedia, Twenty-third Amendment (secondhand items flagged in the text)
• Wikipedia, District of Columbia voting rights (secondhand items flagged in the text)

Footnotes

1. National Archives, The Constitution of the United States: A Transcription, https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript. Article I, Section 8, Clause 17; Article II, Section 1.
2. National Constitution Center, Interpretation: The Twenty-Third Amendment, https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/amendments/amendment-xxiii/interpretations/155. Source for the essays quoted, including the statement about Adams v. Clinton (D.D.C. 2000); the opinion itself was not read.
3. William V. Moore, "District of Columbia Receives Representation in Presidential Elections," EBSCO Research Starters (2021), https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/politics-and-government/district-columbia-receives-representation-presidential/. A secondary summary. Where it conflicts with primary sources, this lesson says so.
4. Loughborough v. Blake, 18 U.S. (5 Wheat.) 317 (1820), https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/18/317.
5. Constitution Annotated, Amendment XXIII, "Overview" and "Historical Background" (Cornell LII edition), https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-23/overview-of-twenty-third-amendment-district-of-columbia-electors and https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-23/historical-background. Source for the quotation from H.R. Rep. No. 1698 (86th Cong., 2d Sess.).
6. National Constitution Center, 23rd Amendment: Presidential Electors for the District of Columbia, https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/amendments/amendment-xxiii. Text of the amendment and the dates "Passed by Congress June 16, 1960. Ratified March 29, 1961."
7. National Archives, Electoral College, "Allocation of Electors," https://www.archives.gov/electoral-college/allocation.
8. Wikipedia, Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-third_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution. Secondhand; used for the ratification order and dates, which this lesson did not check against each State's journal.
9. General Services Administration, certificate of the Administrator on ratification of the Twenty-Third Amendment, April 3, 1961, 75 Stat. 847, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-75/pdf/STATUTE-75-Pg847.pdf.
10. Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, "Constitutional Amendments Series: Amendment XXIII, Extending the Vote to the District of Columbia" (Oct. 13, 2022), https://reagan.blogs.archives.gov/2022/10/13/constitutional-amendments-series-amendment-xxiii-extending-the-vote-to-the-district-of-columbia.
11. Minnesota Legislative Reference Library, ratifications of U.S. constitutional amendments, House Journal, January 31, 1961, p. 219, https://www.lrl.mn.gov/history/usconamd.
12. U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 Census apportionment tables, resident population, https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/decennial/2020/data/apportionment/apportionment-2020-table02.xlsx.
13. Pub. L. 87-389, 75 Stat. 817 (Oct. 4, 1961), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-75/pdf/STATUTE-75-Pg817.pdf. Source for the nomination of the District's electors by party executive committees.
14. 3 U.S.C. section 21, Definitions, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/3/21.
15. H.J. Res. 554, 95th Cong., 92 Stat. 3795 (1978), https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-92/pdf/STATUTE-92-Pg3795.pdf.
16. H.R. 51, 119th Congress, as introduced, Government Publishing Office text, https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/BILLS-119hr51ih/html/BILLS-119hr51ih.htm. This lesson reports the bill as introduced; it did not follow later action on it.
17. Wikipedia, District of Columbia voting rights, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_voting_rights. Secondhand; used for background on the 1978 amendment and later votes, flagged where relied on.
18. National Popular Vote, https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/. An advocacy organization; the jurisdiction list and electoral-vote total are its own figures and were not independently verified.
19. Chiafalo v. Washington, 591 U.S. 578 (2020), https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-465_i425.pdf. Source for the description of McPherson v. Blacker, 146 U.S. 1 (1892).
20. Idaho Session Laws (1961), H.J.R. No. 3, pp. 1074-1075, https://legislature.idaho.gov/wp-content/uploads/sessionlaws/sessionlaws_1961.pdf. The scanned text reads the Senate date as "81"; this lesson reads it as 31.
21. Idaho Code section 34-1501, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/Title34/T34CH15/SECT34-1501/.
22. Idaho Code section 34-1502, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/Title34/T34CH15/SECT34-1502/.
23. Idaho Code section 34-1503, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/Title34/T34CH15/SECT34-1503/.
24. Idaho Code sections 34-1504 to 34-1506, https://legislature.idaho.gov/statutesrules/idstat/Title34/T34CH15/SECT34-1504/.