HOUSE RESOLUTION NO. 4
(By Delegates Walters, Ryan, Ellis, Everson, Pulliam,
Henderson and Overington.)

Memorializing the President and the Congress of the United States not to enact legislation illegally admitting the City of Washington, D.C., to the Union as the State of New Columbia in contravention of the United States Constitution.

Whereas, A bill has been introduced in the United States Congress to admit the City of Washington, D.C., as the nation's fifty-first state; and

Whereas, Paragraph 17 of Section 8 of Article I of the United States Constitution provides that the nation's capital shall be formed from the territory voluntarily ceded by particular states to the federal government for that specific purpose; and
Whereas, The City of Washington, D.C., is composed of territory ceded by the State of Maryland for the specific purpose of forming the nation's capital; and
Whereas, Section 3 of Article IV of the United States Constitution forbids the formation of a new state out of the territory of any single state or the junction of two or more states, without the consent of the legislature of the states concerned; and
Whereas, The State of Maryland has never consented to the use of its former territory for the formation of the proposed State of New Columbia; and
Whereas, The 23rd Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that the "district constituting the seat of government of the United States" shall have three electoral college votes for President and Vice President of the United States; and
Whereas, The 95th Congress, in proposing a constitutional amendment granting Washington, D.C., congressional representation on par with the several states, recognized the unconstitutionality of statehood for the nation's capital absent a constitutional amendment so providing; and
Whereas, That several states rejected the proposed amendment; therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Delegates:
That the members respectfully memorialize the President and Congress of the United States not to enact legislation illegally admitting the City of Washington, D.C., to the Union as a state and to reject any other form of legislation that purports to achieve that goal; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the Clerk of the House of Delegates is hereby directed to forward a copy of this resolution to the President and Vice President of the United States, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, and to each Senator and representative from West Virginia in the Congress of the United States.