In order to clarify what the court did on March 20, 2000, let's review a few foundational facts about the case. As you know, the Plaintiffs sued four Defendants: the President, the Clerk of the House, the Sergeant at Arms of the House, and the Control Board. Since the Clerk and Sergeant at Arms of the House are in the same essential position and are in the case for the same reason, I'll refer to them as the "House Officers."

They sued the President for two reasons: for his role in apportionments of representation in the House and for his role in enforcing laws Congress imposes on the District.

They sued the House Officers for one reason: their role in apportionments of representation in the House.

Finally, the Plaintiffs sued the Control Board for one reason: its role as something Congress has imposed on the District of Columbia.

As to each Defendant, the Plaintiffs argued that their respective roles--either in apportioning representation in the House or as imposing Congressional will on you--violate their rights to equal protection of the laws and to republican forms of government.

Because the case involved apportionment of representation in Congress, the Plaintiffs asked for and were granted a hearing before a Three-judge District Court, which was created to hear cases involving apportionment of representation in Congress. But while a Three-judge District Court can decide all issues in a case, once the Court has the case, it doesn't have to decide all issues. It can limit itself to only the issue of apportionment of representation.

Finally, as part of the essential background to the decisions issued last week, the case was consolidated with another case under a principle that indicated the two cases would remain separate, but merely be heard and considered by the same judges at the same time.

On March 20, the following things happened. Although all of it was made public at one time (on March 20), it actually happened in a certain order.

First, the Three-judge District Court decided that it would not address any of the issues presented in either case which did not have to do with apportionment of representation in Congress. For Adams v. Clinton, this means that the Three-judge Court decided it would not consider the Plaintiffs' claims against the President insofar as they concerned his role enforcing laws Congress imposes on the citizens of the District and it would not consider the Plaintiffs' claims against the Control Board in its role as unelected government imposed on the District by Congress. For the other case, the Three-judge Court decided it would not decide any claims against the Secretary of the Senate or Sergeant at Arms of the Senate, since neither of them have anything to do with the apportionment claim in the other case.

The Three-judge Court sent these claims in both cases "back" to the single judge originally assigned to both cases--Judge Oberdorfer--for him to decide, on his own, as a single District Judge.

Second, the Three Judge District Court addressed what it referred to as the "claims" in the "cases." But here's the first surprising and disappointing thing. Although they acknowledge that two cases were before the Court, in seventy-eight pages of their opinion, the majority of the Three-judge Court (Merrick Garland and Colleen Kollar-Kotelly) never address any of the unique claims or arguments made in Adams v. Clinton. Instead, the majority of the Three-judge Court spent the entire memorandum discussing the claims and arguments presented in the case filed by Corporation Counsel. Yet, from the way the Memorandum is written, if one doesn't know what the two cases are about, one would think that the Court was including Adams in its discussion of Alexander, as if the two were one.

The Three Judge majority found that the plaintiffs (apparently in both cases, but this is not clear) have standing to have brought suit (pages 7-19), but they analyze the claims and arguments made in Alexander and decide the following major points:

- that Congress cannot legislatively treat the District "as a state" merely "for the purposes of" Article I of the Constitution (pages 21-42) (note that the Plaintiffs in Adams agree completely with the Court's decision here and this is one of the points at which the theories of Adams conflict directly with the theories of the other case), and

- that there is no such thing as "residual citizenship" in Maryland and the Court cannot unilaterally alter the political reality that the District and Maryland have been separate entities for almost two centuries (pages 42-62) (note again that the Plaintiffs in Adams agree almost completely with what the Court says in this section and have made precisely these points to the Court (the Plaintiffs disagree with the majority only on its reading of some of the history, which doesn't alter the outcome of the analysis).

On the basis of this analysis, third, the Three-judge Court entered an Order--the legally dispositive "event"--which dismissed the Plaintiffs' claims against the President and House Officers for their roles in apportionments and which granted the President's and House Officers' motions to dismiss claims against them concerning apportionments.

Third, one of the judges on the Three-judge panel--Oberdorfer-"dissented" from his colleagues on the apportionment issue. Judge Oberdorfer issued a sixty-eight page opinion in which he argues, quite convincingly, that there is such a thing as a fundamental right to vote and that the founders of the country never intended to strip rights from the residents of the District.

Fifth, Judge Oberdorfer addressed at least some of the claims sent "back" to him from the Three-judge Court for decision. He addressed the claim made in Alexander against the Senate Officers and he addressed the claim made in Adams against the Control Board.

Although the Three-judge District Court had remanded Adams' claims against the Control Board to Judge Oberdorfer because those claims did not involve apportionment of representation in the House, Judge Oberdorfer nevertheless discusses those claims as if the Plaintiffs had claimed that the Control Board had something to do with apportionment. In fact, as the Plaintiffs argued in their memorandum against the Control Board's Motion to Dismiss, they did not claim that the Control Board had anything to do with apportionment.

In other words, Judge Oberdorfer sets up what's called a "straw man." This is term used by logicians (philosophers who study the science of logic) to refer to a logical fallacy or error where someone creates a false opponent designed to be struck down, since it's only "straw." Since Judge Oberdorfer discusses a "claim" against the Control Board that the Plaintiffs didn't make and which they told the Court they didn't make, and since he uses that discussion to avoid analyzing the claim the Plaintiffs did make, it's a distraction or charade to avoid addressing the claims actually made.

But Judge Oberdorfer does offer an explanation. At the close of his short discussion of the Plaintiffs' claims against the Control Board, he says that his hands are tied by the legal authority of the D.C. Circuit. This indicates that he may have felt that he had to decide the case as he did, only because the D.C. Circuit has laid out a body of bad law which he has no choice but to follow--at least until the Plaintiffs can convince the Supreme Court to overturn it.