Twenty-Third Amendment

• Author: Dennis J. Mahoney
• Pages: 2743-2744

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Proposed by Congress on June 17, 1960, the Twenty-Third Amendment became effective on March 29, 1961. The

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amendment includes residents of the DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA in the process of electing the President and Vice-President by allowing them to choose members of the ELECTORAL COLLEGE. The influence of the district is limited by the proviso permitting it no more electoral votes than the least populous state?in practice fixing the district's electoral votes at three.

As the amendment was introduced by Senator Kenneth Keating, of New York, it would have allocated the District of Columbia as many electoral votes as a state with the same population and would have permitted the district to elect representatives to Congress on the same basis. Representative Emmanuel Celler, of New York, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, reduced it to its final form in order to insure passage. Celler's committee also separated the District of Columbia suffrage amendment from two other amendments (on Congressional vacancies and...