District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment - History

History

Representative Don Edwards of California proposed House Joint Resolution 554 in the 95th Congress. The United States House of Representatives passed it on March 2, 1978, by a 289–127 vote, with 18 not voting. The United States Senate passed it on August 22, 1978, by a 67–32 vote, with 1 not voting. With that, the District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment was submitted to the state legislatures for ratification. The Congress, via Section 4 of the proposed amendment, required ratification by three-fourths (38) of the states to be completed within seven years following its passage by the Congress (i.e., August 22, 1985) in order for the proposed amendment to become part of the Constitution.

After those seven years, the District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment received 16 ratifications and so failed to be adopted.

Read more about this topic:  District Of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment

Famous quotes containing the word history:

    I believe that history has shape, order, and meaning; that exceptional men, as much as economic forces, produce change; and that passé abstractions like beauty, nobility, and greatness have a shifting but continuing validity.
    Camille Paglia (b. 1947)

    When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended; when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory; with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?
    David Hume (1711–1776)

    The history of a soldier’s wound beguiles the pain of it.
    Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)