1 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 

JOHN H. PAGE, 

Plaintiff, 

v. 

GINA M. RAIMONDO, 

Defendant. 

Case No. 1:22-cv-01416 (ACR) 

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

 Plaintiff John H. Page, a D.C. resident proceeding pro se, hopes to vote in congressional 

elections but acknowledges that the District of Columbia has no right to any representation in the 

U.S. House of Representatives. To get around this difficulty, he seeks an order compelling 

Defendant Gina M. Raimondo, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, to list the population of 

“Columbia” in the census data she reports to the President for use in apportioning congressional 

seats. What is Columbia? According to Plaintiff, Columbia is a fifty-first state coextensive with 

the District that Congress admitted to the Union in 1801. Alternatively, if the Court declines to 

find that a state has existed for over 200 years without anyone noticing, Plaintiff asks the Court 

to authorize him and other D.C. residents to vote in House elections in Maryland. 

 Plaintiff’s plea for representation raises weighty questions of fairness and democratic 

legitimacy. But those policy questions are beyond the Court’s jurisdiction. And, given 

Plaintiff’s wholly insubstantial legal arguments, so too is this case, which the Court dismisses 

without prejudice.1

1

 The Court dismisses without prejudice because any jurisdictional dismissal must operate 

without prejudice. E.g., Havens v. Mabus, 759 F.3d 91, 98 (D.C. Cir. 2014). 
2 

I. BACKGROUND 

A. Legal and Historical Background 

 The Constitution’s District Clause—Article I, section 8, clause 17—authorizes Congress 

“[t]o exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District . . . as may, by 

Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the 

Government of the United States.” U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 17. This District—the modern 

District of Columbia—now comprises territory ceded by Maryland shortly after the Founding. 

See Adams v. Clinton, 90 F. Supp. 2d 35, 51-53, 57-58 (D.D.C.) (three-judge panel) (per curiam), 

aff’d mem. sub nom. Alexander v. Mineta, 531 U.S. 940 (2000), and aff’d mem. 531 U.S. 941 

(2000). It formerly also included areas ceded by Virginia, but Congress retroceded those areas to 

the state in 1846. Id. at 53. The District, whose residents now number about 690,000, District of 

Columbia: 2020 Census, U.S. Census Bureau (Aug. 25, 2021), https://www.census.gov/library/ 

stories/state-by-state/district-of-columbia-population-change-between-census-decade.html 

[https://perma.cc/5FYL-DSS4], has never had representation in Congress.2

 See, e.g., Adams, 90 

F. Supp. 2d at 53. 

 Litigants have repeatedly challenged this disenfranchisement in court. A few such cases 

foreshadow some of Plaintiff’s arguments and so are particularly relevant here. In 1964, an 

unsuccessful candidate for U.S. Senate in Maryland—apparently seeking to mix up the voter 

pool—sought a declaratory judgment that D.C. residents have a constitutional right to vote in 

U.S. Senate elections in Maryland. Albaugh v. Tawes, 233 F. Supp. 576, 576 (D. Md.) (three2

 The District does have a congressional “delegate” whom the House has, at certain times 

(including the present), allowed to vote in some committees. See, e.g., Rules of the House of 

Representatives, 118th Cong., R. 3 (2023), https://rules.house.gov/sites/republicans.rules118. 

house.gov/files/documents/Rules%20and%20Resources/118-House-Rules-Clerk.pdf [https:// 

perma.cc/6BWL-2YQ4]. See generally Michel v. Anderson, 14 F.3d 623 (D.C. Cir. 1994). 
3 

judge panel) (per curiam), aff’d, 379 U.S. 27 (1964) (per curiam). A three-judge district court 

dismissed the suit for failure to state a claim, Albaugh, 233 F. Supp. at 578, and the Supreme 

Court summarily affirmed,3 Albaugh, 379 U.S. at 27. In 2000, in Adams, a collection of D.C. 

residents and the District itself “challenge[d] as unconstitutional the denial of their right to elect 

representatives to the Congress of the United States.” 90 F. Supp. 2d at 37. Concluding that 

Article I restricts representation in the House to “true states and not the District,” the three-judge 

district court dismissed their claims, id. at 48, and again the Supreme Court summarily affirmed, 

Adams, 531 U.S. at 941; Alexander, 531 U.S. at 940. Finally, another collection of D.C. voters 

asserted that the District’s lack of congressional suffrage violates an assortment of constitutional 

provisions in Castañon v. United States, 444 F. Supp. 3d 118 (D.D.C. 2020) (three-judge panel), 

aff’d mem., 142 S. Ct. 56 (2021). See id. at 122. The lower court dismissed that case, too, id. at 

149, and once more the Supreme Court summarily affirmed, 142 S. Ct. at 56. 

B. Plaintiff’s Litigation Campaign 

 Plaintiff—a D.C. resident and taxpayer, Dkt. 22 (Am. Compl.) ¶ 38—is no stranger to 

litigation about D.C. voting rights. His first foray into the field was a pro se amicus brief before 

the district court in Castañon. See Memorandum of Law of Amicus Curiae John H. Page in 

Support of Plaintiffs in Part and in Support of Defendants in Part, Castañon, 444 F. Supp. 3d 118 

(No. 18-cv-2545). Perhaps surprisingly, his brief sided with the defendants, albeit on technical 

grounds: consistent with his arguments here, Plaintiff asserted that the Castañon plaintiffs should 

have sought congressional representation through the purported State of Columbia (which, recall, 

3

 Litigants may directly appeal decisions of three-judge district courts to the Supreme Court. 28 

U.S.C. § 1253. 
4 

Plaintiff contends is geographically coextensive with the District), rather than the District itself. 

Id. at 4. 

 Plaintiff struck out on his own in Page v. Biden (Page I), No. 20-cv-104, 2021 WL 

311002 (D.D.C. Jan. 29, 2021), aff’d, No. 21-5038, 2021 WL 4767945 (D.C. Cir. Oct. 1, 2021) 

(per curiam). Again previewing the theory on which he relies here, Plaintiff “[a]lleg[ed] that 

there is already a state—the State of Columbia—that overlaps geographically with the District,” 

and sought “an injunction requiring [President Joseph R. Biden Jr.] to include Columbia’s 

residents in the congressional apportionment calculation following the decennial census.” Id. at 

*1. Concluding that it lacked jurisdiction to enter the requested injunction against the President, 

the court dismissed the case without prejudice, id., and the D.C. Circuit affirmed, 2021 WL 

4767945, at *1. 

 Undaunted, Plaintiff filed this case against both President Biden and Secretary 

Raimondo—who is responsible for submitting to the President the census data used in 

apportioning House seats among the states, see 13 U.S.C. § 141(b)—in May 2022, invoking the 

same state-within-the-District theory he presented in Page I. Dkt. 1. In an August 2023 Minute 

Order, the Court dismissed the claims against President Biden for the reasons stated in Page I

and invited Plaintiff to file an amended pleading clarifying the relief he seeks from Secretary 

Raimondo. Min. Order of Aug. 10, 2023. Plaintiff then filed the operative Amended Complaint 

against only Secretary Raimondo. Am. Compl. He seeks a declaratory judgment recognizing 

the existence of the State of Columbia and requiring Defendant to submit amended census 

apportionment data that includes Columbia as a state. Am. Compl. ¶ 48. Alternatively, he requests 

an order permitting him and other D.C. residents to vote in House elections in Maryland. Id.

¶¶ 49-50. Defendant has moved to dismiss the Amended Complaint. Dkt. 23 (Mot.). 
5 

II. LEGAL STANDARD 

 A district court ordinarily must refer a case, like this one, that “challenges the 

constitutionality of the apportionment of congressional districts” to a three-judge court. 28 

U.S.C. § 2284(a). But a court must dismiss a complaint for lack of jurisdiction—and need not 

convene a three-judge court under § 2284—where the plaintiff’s claims are “wholly insubstantial 

and frivolous.” 4 Shapiro v. McManus, 577 U.S. 39, 45-46 (2015) (quoting Bell v. Hood, 327 

U.S. 678, 682-83 (1946)); Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(h)(3). 

 “‘[C]onstitutional insubstantiality’ for this purpose has been equated with such concepts 

as ‘essentially fictitious,’ ‘wholly insubstantial,’ ‘obviously frivolous,’ and ‘obviously without 

merit.’” Shapiro, 577 U.S. at 45-46 (cleaned up). These “adverbs [a]re no mere throwaways,” 

and “[c]onstitutional claims [should] not lightly be found insubstantial.” Id. (cleaned up). 

Instead, the “determination of substantiality . . . often demands of the district judge an 

exceedingly close analysis of [a plaintiff’s] constitutional claims vis-a-vis prior case law.” 

Feinberg v. FDIC, 522 F.2d 1335, 1339 (D.C. Cir. 1975). Although a claim is not necessarily 

insubstantial simply because it contravenes existing Supreme Court precedent, to avoid dismissal 

of such a claim for want of jurisdiction, the plaintiff must advance a nonfrivolous argument for 

reversing that precedent. See Holmes v. FEC, 823 F.3d 69, 74 (D.C. Cir. 2016). 

4

 Defendant styles her Motion as one to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of 

Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Mot. at 9-10. But she also repeatedly asserts that Plaintiff’s claims are 

“frivolous” or “insubstantial” and asks the Court to dismiss the case without convening a threejudge court, e.g., Mot. at 17-19—something the Court can do only if it finds that it lacks 

jurisdiction, see Shapiro v. McManus, 577 U.S. 39, 44-45 (2015). Since the parties have fully 

briefed the (in)substantiality of Plaintiff’s claims and the Court must, in any event, dismiss the 

case sua sponte if it lacks jurisdiction, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(h)(3), it construes the Motion as one 

to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. 
6 

 The Court is mindful of its obligation to treat pro se litigants, such as Plaintiff, with 

“solicitude,” Kim v. United States, 840 F. Supp. 2d 180, 191 (D.D.C. 2012), aff’d, 707 F.3d 335 

(D.C. Cir. 2013), including by liberally construing their filings, Richardson v. United States, 193 

F.3d 545, 548 (D.C. Cir. 1999). But “even a pro se plaintiff must comply with the Federal Rules 

of Civil Procedure,” Hedrick v. FBI, 216 F. Supp. 3d 84, 93 (D.D.C. 2016), and the Court cannot 

hear any case, even one brought by a pro se litigant, that falls outside its subject matter 

jurisdiction, see, e.g., Fontaine v. Bank of Am., N.A., 43 F. Supp. 3d 1, 3 (D.D.C. 2014). 

III. ANALYSIS 

 Plaintiff emphasizes that, to qualify for congressional suffrage, he must be a resident of a 

state. E.g., Dkt. 24 (Opp.) ¶¶ 2, 10, 30; Am. Compl. ¶¶ 28, 35, 49. He also concedes that the 

District is not a state. E.g., Dkt. 31 (Surreply) ¶ 5; Opp. ¶ 24(b); Am. Compl. ¶¶ 16, 32, 46. To 

square this circle, Plaintiff argues that he is a resident of Columbia,5

 a fifty-first state 

coterminous with the District. He argues in the alternative that the Court should hold that he and 

other D.C. residents may vote for Congress in Maryland. After “close analysis,” Feinberg, 522 

5

 Before we had Lady Liberty and Uncle Sam, we had Lady Columbia. In 1697, Chief Justice 

Samuel Sewall of the Massachusetts Bay Colony “suggested that the American colonies be 

called Columbina, a feminized version of Christopher Columbus’[s] last name.” Goddess of 

Liberty Figure, Smithsonian Nat’l Museum of Am. Hist., https://americanhistory.si.edu/ 

collections/nmah_693815 [https://perma.cc/5RH7-G9U4]. While that name did not stick for our 

nation, a female Columbia “became a symbol for American ideals during . . . the American 

Revolution, the War of 1812, and World War I.” Id. Thus, New York City’s early private 

college is named Columbia University; companies have names such as Columbia Records, 

Columbia Pictures, and the Columbia Broadcasting System; and our nation’s capital is, natch, the 

District of Columbia. See id.; Garance Franke-Ruta, When America Was Female, The Atlantic 

(Mar. 5, 2013), https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/03/when-america-wasfemale/273672 [https://perma.cc/746G-ZM84]. Unfortunately for Plaintiff, however, Columbia 

has never been used as the name of an American state. 
7 

F.2d at 1339, the Court concludes that these arguments are “wholly insubstantial” and dismisses 

them for lack of jurisdiction,6 Shapiro, 577 U.S. at 45 (cleaned up). 

A. There Is No State of Columbia, and Plaintiff’s Arguments to the Contrary 

Are Frivolous 

 “New States [must] be admitted by the Congress . . . .” U.S. Const. art. IV, § 3, cl. 1. 

Plaintiff contends that Congress exercised this power to admit the State of Columbia in 1801. 

E.g., Am. Compl. ¶ 5. The text of the statutes that Plaintiff cites provides no support whatsoever 

for this theory. Nor do other relevant interpretive tools. And Plaintiff’s counterarguments hold 

no water. The upshot is that Plaintiff has not presented a substantial federal question. 

1. Plaintiff’s arguments plainly lack any support in the statutory text 

 The statute that Plaintiff identifies as admitting Columbia into the Union unambiguously 

did no such thing. Plaintiff points to the following language in the Organic Act of 1801, the 

statute in which Congress established the original government for the District: “[T]he laws of the 

state of Maryland, as they now exist, shall be and continue in force in that part of the . . . 

[D]istrict, which was ceded by that state to the United States.” An Act Concerning the District 

of Columbia, ch. 15, § 1, 2 Stat. 103, 104-05 (1801); see Am. Compl. ¶ 5; Adams, 90 F. Supp. 2d 

at 56 (describing the Organic Act). Nothing in that language at all suggests that Congress 

intended to admit a new state to the Union. Instead, as Adams explained, this section “did 

6

 One might expect that, if Plaintiff’s claims are “obviously without merit,” Shapiro, 577 U.S. at 

46 (cleaned up), the Court could conclude without spilling much ink that Defendant wins. 

However, the question the Court must answer is not whether Plaintiff or Defendant has the better 

of the argument on the merits. Instead, the question is whether Plaintiff’s claims are so 

obviously defective that the Court must dismiss them for lack of jurisdiction. Answering that 

question requires “an exceedingly close analysis of [Plaintiff’s] constitutional claims.” 

Feinberg, 522 F.2d at 1339. The Court therefore reviews Plaintiff’s (many) arguments in detail 

to assess whether there is any even arguable basis on which this case can proceed. The reader 

should not conclude that the length of this analysis correlates with the viability of Plaintiff’s 

theories. 
8 

nothing more than fix [Maryland’s laws] (as they stood as of that date) as a part of the common 

law of the District; without such a provision the new District would have had no laws upon 

which to build.” 90 F. Supp. 2d at 60 n.46. Plaintiff’s alternative reading that the statute created 

a new state is “obviously without merit.” Shapiro, 577 U.S. at 46 (cleaned up). 

 Plaintiff argues that the 1791 Maryland state statute that ceded the land that became the 

District provides necessary context for interpreting the 1801 Act. The purportedly relevant 

section of that statute declared: 

That all that part of the said territory, called Columbia, which lies 

within the limits of this state, shall be and the same is hereby 

acknowledged to be for ever ceded and relinquished to the 

congress and government of the United States, in full and absolute 

right, and exclusive jurisdiction, as well of soil as of persons 

residing, or to reside, thereon, pursuant to the tenor and effect of 

the eighth section of the first article of the constitution of 

government of the United States; provided . . . that the jurisdiction 

of the laws of this state, over the persons and property of 

individuals residing within the limits of the cession aforesaid, shall 

not cease or determine until congress shall by law provide for the 

government thereof, under their jurisdiction, in manner provided 

by the article of the constitution before recited. 

1791 Md. Laws ch. 45, § 2. Plaintiff makes two arguments based on this language; each is 

frivolous. 

 The first takes some unpacking. As the Court understands it, Plaintiff interprets the 

phrase “pursuant to the tenor and effect of the eighth section of the first article of the constitution 

of government of the United States” as a limiting clause, restricting Congress’s jurisdiction over 

the ceded area to only those powers constitutionally delegated to Congress. Id.; see Am. Compl. 

¶ 4. He then argues that (1) only states—and not the federal government—can administer 

congressional elections, (2) authority over congressional elections in the District must therefore 

have passed to some authority other than Congress, and thus (3) the Court should conclude that 
9 

Congress impliedly admitted Columbia as a state to fill that gap. See Am. Compl. ¶ 4. That 

reading has at least two obvious problems. First, far from seeking to withhold any authority 

from Congress, the statute unambiguously “ceded and relinquished [the District] to the congress 

and government of the United States, in full and absolute right, and exclusive jurisdiction.” 1791 

Md. Laws ch. 45, § 2. And rather than limiting Congress’s authority, the “pursuant to” language 

underscores the breadth of that concession, since the cited constitutional provision—Article I, 

section 8—gives Congress authority to “exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, 

over [the] District.” U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 17; see, e.g., Palmore v. United States, 411 U.S. 

389, 397 (1973) (recognizing that Congress’s power over the District “is plenary”). Second, 

Plaintiff’s argument begs the question—it assumes that Plaintiff has a right to congressional 

representation, and that since it cannot come through the District, it must come through a state. 

As discussed below, that assumption flouts settled Supreme Court precedent, and Plaintiff makes 

no nonfrivolous argument to overcome that precedent. Plaintiff’s notion that a tortured reading 

of a centuries-old Maryland state statute requires the Court to recognize a fifty-first state is 

“essentially fictitious.” Shapiro, 577 U.S. at 45 (cleaned up). 

 Plaintiff’s other argument is only slightly less convoluted. It relies on the 1791 statute’s 

proviso that “the jurisdiction of the laws of [Maryland], over the persons and property of 

individuals residing within the limits of the [District], shall not cease or determine until congress 

shall by law provide for the government thereof.” 1791 Md. Laws ch. 45, § 2; see, e.g., Opp. 

¶ 13(c) & n.1. Plaintiff reads this language to require Congress to afford D.C. residents the same 

congressional suffrage they enjoyed while citizens of Maryland, which, he argues, Congress 

could do only by admitting Columbia as a state (or by allowing D.C. residents to continue to vote 

through Maryland—a theory the Court addresses below). Even setting aside the question 
10 

whether remaining under “the jurisdiction of the laws of [Maryland]” implies a right to 

congressional suffrage, Plaintiff again plainly misreads the statute, which provides only that 

Maryland would retain jurisdiction over the District until “congress . . . by law provide[d] for the 

government thereof”—something it did well over 200 years ago. See Adams, 90 F. Supp. 2d at 

59 (discussing Congress’s assumption of control over the District). Plaintiff’s interpretation is 

again “obviously without merit.” Shapiro, 577 U.S. at 46 (cleaned up). 

 A comparison of the Organic Act to statutes by which Congress did admit new states 

reinforces this point. For instance, the nearly contemporaneous 1802 statute admitting Ohio as a 

state provided: 

That the inhabitants of the eastern division of the territory 

northwest of the river Ohio, be, and they are hereby authorized to 

form for themselves a constitution and state government, and to 

assume such name as they shall deem proper, and the said state, 

when formed, shall be admitted into the Union, upon the same 

footing with the original states, in all respects whatever. 

Act of Apr. 30, 1802, ch. 40, § 1, 2 Stat. 173, 173 (1802); see also, e.g., An Act for the 

Admission of the State of Tennessee into the Union, ch. 67, 1 Stat. 491, 491-92 (1796) 

(unambiguously admitting “the State of Tennessee”); An Act for the Admission of the State of 

Vermont into this Union, ch. 7, 1 Stat. 191, 191 (1791) (same for “[t]he State of Vermont”). In 

other words, Congress “does not . . . hide elephants in mouseholes” when admitting new states. 

Whitman v. Am. Trucking Ass’ns, 531 U.S. 457, 468 (2001). 

2. Other interpretive tools confirm that Plaintiff’s theory is wholly 

insubstantial 

That Plaintiff’s theory rests on such a clear misreading of the relevant statutes already 

puts this case in jurisdictionally frivolous territory. At the risk of gilding the lily, however, the 

Court notes that various other interpretive sources—including constitutional text and purpose, 
11 

precedent, and settled historical practice—confirm that Plaintiff’s argument is “wholly 

insubstantial.” Shapiro, 577 U.S. at 45 (cleaned up). 

 Start with the constitutional text. The District Clause empowers Congress “[t]o exercise 

exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District . . . as may, by Cession of 

particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the 

United States.” U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 17 (emphasis added). That language contemplates a 

District made up of territory ceded by states—not within a new state. Underlining this point, the 

same clause grants Congress “like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the 

Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be.” Id. (emphasis added). That is, when the 

Framers intended that territory under federal control remain part of a state, they said so 

explicitly. Plaintiff’s theory thus finds no support in the Constitution’s text, which contemplates 

a District outside of any state. 

 That arrangement makes good sense in light of the Framers’ purpose in enacting the 

District Clause: “[E]nsuring that Congress would not have to depend upon another sovereign for 

its protection.” Adams, 90 F. Supp. 2d at 50. As Adams explained: 

[T]he District Clause was adopted in response to an incident in 

Philadelphia in 1783, in which a crowd of disbanded 

Revolutionary War soldiers, angry at not having been paid, 

gathered to protest in front of the building in which the Continental 

Congress was meeting under the Articles of Confederation. 

Despite requests from the Congress, the Pennsylvania state 

government declined to call out its militia to respond to the threat, 

and the Congress had to adjourn abruptly to New Jersey. The 

episode, viewed as an affront to the weak national government, led 

to the widespread belief that exclusive federal control over the 

national capital was necessary. 

Id. at 50 n.25 (cleaned up); see also Fort Leavenworth R.R. Co. v. Lowe, 114 U.S. 525, 528-29 

(1885) (discussing this history); Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton 180-83 (2004) (same). Or, 
12 

as Madison put it: “[D]ependence of the members of the general government on the State 

comprehending the seat of the government for protection . . . might bring on the national 

councils an imputation of awe or influence equally dishonorable to the government and 

dissatisfactory to the other members of the Confederacy.” The Federalist No. 43, at 272 (James 

Madison) (Clinton Rossiter ed., 1961). Accepting Plaintiff’s contention that the District wholly 

overlaps with a state would upend this constitutional purpose.7

 Precedent, too, conflicts with Plaintiff’s theory. Most obviously, as detailed below, the 

Supreme Court has repeatedly summarily affirmed lower-court decisions holding that D.C. 

residents’ exclusion from the congressional franchise is constitutional. See Castañon, 444 F. 

Supp. 3d at 122, aff’d mem., 142 S. Ct. 56; Adams, 90 F. Supp. 2d at 72, aff’d mem. sub nom. 

Alexander, 531 U.S. 940, and aff’d mem. 531 U.S. 941. Both that Court and the D.C. Circuit 

have confirmed in dicta that “[r]esidents of the District lack the [congressional] suffrage.” Heald 

v. District of Columbia, 259 U.S. 114, 124 (1922); accord Loughborough v. Blake, 18 U.S. (5 

Wheat.) 317, 324 (1820) (Marshall, C.J.) (observing that the District “has voluntarily 

relinquished the right of representation, and has adopted the whole body of Congress for its 

legitimate government”); Banner v. United States, 428 F.3d 303, 309 (D.C. Cir. 2005) (“[T]he 

Constitution denies District residents voting representation in Congress.”). Those decisions 

would be mistaken—or, at least, correct only in the most technical of senses—if D.C. residents 

7

 Plaintiff acknowledges that the Framers “did not want the U.S. government to be influenced . . . 

or . . . threatened by militia from a surrounding state” but asserts that “this is no objection to the 

case presented here” because “Defendant’s compliance with her administrative duties would not 

result in the State of Columbia’s being able to raise a militia.” Am. Compl. ¶ 41. But when 

Congress admits a new state to the Union, it must do so on equal terms with all other states. See 

Coyle v. Smith, 221 U.S. 559, 567, 573 (1911). Congress either admitted Columbia as a coequal 

state or it did not; there is no such thing as a quasi-state that exists only for administrative 

convenience. 
13 

also lived in a State of Columbia, since the Constitution guarantees each state “at Least one 

Representative.” U.S. Const. art. I, § 2, cl. 3. So too would be the Supreme Court’s holding in 

Hepburn v. Ellzey, 6 U.S. (2 Cranch) 445 (1805) (Marshall, C.J.), that D.C. residents are not 

citizens of a “state” within the meaning of Article III’s grant of diversity jurisdiction. Id. at 452-

53; see also Palmore, 411 U.S. at 395 (“The District of Columbia is constitutionally distinct 

from the States.” (cleaned up)). In fairness, Plaintiff is probably correct in responding that 

litigants in those cases did not think to present his state-within-the-District theory. E.g., Opp. 

¶ 24(b). But that two centuries of litigants and jurists did not think of it says much about the 

viability of Plaintiff’s position. 

 Commentary from the time of the Framing and the District’s formation sends a similar 

message. Madison, for example, observed in Federalist No. 43 that D.C. residents would “be 

allowed” a “municipal legislature for local purposes”; that phrasing contrasts with his adjacent 

reference to “the legislature of the State” that would cede the territory to form the District. The 

Federalist No. 43, supra, at 272-73. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story noted explicitly that 

“inhabitants [of the District] . . . are not indeed citizens of any state, entitled to the privileges of 

such.” 3 Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 1218 (1833). 

And, as other courts have observed, numerous historical sources “indicate[] a contemporary 

understanding that residents of the District would not have a vote in the national Congress.”8

 

8

 Plaintiff cites a failed constitutional amendment proposed by Alexander Hamilton at the New 

York ratifying convention that would have required Congress to allow for “District 

representation” in Congress once the District reached some unspecified minimum population, 

Adams, 90 F. Supp. 2d at 51 (cleaned up), as evidence that the Framers did not intend to 

disenfranchise D.C. residents permanently. Opp. ¶ 36(c). To the contrary, the proposal implies 

that Hamilton did not believe that the Constitution, as eventually adopted, granted D.C. residents 

a voice in Congress. See Adams, 90 F. Supp. 2d at 51. 
14 

Adams, 90 F. Supp. 2d at 51; see id. at 51-53 (collecting sources). Again, such an understanding 

would be inexplicable were D.C. residents also residents of a State of Columbia. 

 Perhaps most damning for Plaintiff is more than 220 years’ unbroken historical practice 

of utterly ignoring the supposed State of Columbia. Cf., e.g., Chiafalo v. Washington, 591 U.S. 

578, 592 (2020) (“Long settled and established practice may have great weight in a proper 

interpretation of constitutional provisions.” (cleaned up)). There has never been an elected 

Columbia government; indeed, for much of the last two centuries, there has not even been an 

elected D.C. government. See Adams, 90 F. Supp. 2d at 47 n.19. Columbia has never sent any 

Representatives or Senators to Congress.9

 Cf. U.S. Const. art. I, § 2, cl. 3 (guaranteeing each 

state “at Least one Representative”); id. art. I, § 3, cl. 1 (requiring two Senators per state). Nor 

has Columbia ever appointed any presidential electors—though the District has done so under 

the Twenty-Third Amendment, such that D.C. residents would be double-counted in the 

Electoral College if Columbia existed. See U.S. Const. amend. XXIII. This inaction has 

persisted despite longstanding activism and controversy concerning D.C. residents’ political 

voicelessness. See, e.g., Castañon, 444 F. Supp. 3d at 139 n.8 (discussing political activity in 

this area). If there were a state hidden in the nation’s capital, someone would have noticed 

before now. 

9

 Plaintiff tries to explain this lack of representation, at least early in the District’s history, as a 

product of the region’s small population. See Am. Compl. ¶ 20. But the Constitution would 

have entitled Columbia to at least one Representative and two Senators regardless of its 

population; contrary to Plaintiff’s argument, a state need not achieve some minimum “sufficient 

population for apportionment.” Id.; see U.S. Const. art. I, § 2, cl. 3; id. art. I, § 3, cl. 1. And, 

however small their number, D.C. residents were concerned about their lack of congressional 

representation from the first. See Adams, 90 F. Supp. 2d at 51-53. Indeed, as Plaintiff 

acknowledges, residents of the portion of the District originally ceded by Virginia sought and 

obtained retrocession at least in part because of a desire for full suffrage. See id. at 53 & n.33; 

William Tindall, Origin and Government of the District of Columbia 108, 110 (1907); Opp. 

¶ 36(d). 
15 

 Given the universal nonacknowledgment of Columbia’s existence, Plaintiff’s theory 

would raise a host of practical dilemmas. With no state government in place, who would 

administer Columbia’s congressional elections? And who would be eligible to vote in those 

elections? The Constitution requires that House voters “have the Qualifications requisite for 

Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature,” U.S. Const. art. I, § 2, cl. 1—

what does that mean in a state with no legislature? In the same vein, the Constitution calls for a 

state’s “Executive Authority” to “issue Writs of Election to fill [any] Vacancies” that might arise 

in its congressional delegation, id. art. I, § 2, cl. 4—who fills that role in a state with no 

governor? The Court has no idea (and doubts its jurisdiction to set up a new state government 

from scratch). 

 In sum, whatever approach one takes, Plaintiff’s state-within-the-District claim is plainly 

frivolous.

3. Plaintiff’s remaining counterarguments are obviously meritless 

Plaintiff offers a hodgepodge of other arguments in support of Columbia’s existence. 

None presents even an “arguable” federal question. Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env’t, 523 

U.S. 83, 89 (1998). 

 First, Plaintiff argues that he must be a resident of a state because he pays federal income 

taxes, which, he believes, the Sixteenth Amendment permits Congress to impose only on state 

residents. E.g., Am. Compl. ¶ 32(a). That is an obvious misreading of that Amendment, which 

gives Congress “the power to lay and collect taxes on incomes . . . without apportionment among 

the several states.” U.S. Const. amend. XVI (emphasis added). Both the Supreme Court and the 

D.C. Circuit have held that Congress may tax D.C. residents despite their lack of congressional 

representation. See Heald, 259 U.S. at 124; Breakefield v. District of Columbia, 442 F.2d 1227, 
16 

1229-30 (D.C. Cir. 1970) (per curiam); see also Loughborough, 18 U.S. at 325 (holding, even 

before Sixteenth Amendment, that Congress could tax D.C. residents). Consistent with those 

decisions, another court in this District has held that a similar no-taxation-without-representation 

argument is “insubstantial.” 10 Hobson v. Tobriner, 255 F. Supp. 295, 299 (D.D.C. 1966). 

Plaintiff offers no nonfrivolous response to these precedents; indeed, other than dismissing 

Loughborough as predating the Sixteenth Amendment, Surreply ¶ 7, he offers no response at all. 

 Second, Plaintiff argues that, if the Organic Act (and the creation of the District) did not 

create a new state, then it would be unconstitutional on various grounds, such that the Court 

should construe the Act as admitting Columbia to avoid declaring it unconstitutional. E.g., Opp. 

¶ 20(a). That argument has two obvious shortcomings. First, while a court “may interpret 

ambiguous statutory language to avoid serious constitutional doubts, . . . that canon of 

construction applies only when ambiguity exists,” and a court may “not rewrite a law to conform 

it to constitutional requirements.” Iancu v. Brunetti, 588 U.S. 388, 397 (2019) (cleaned up). 

Plaintiff’s reading of the Organic Act is entirely baseless, and the Court cannot rewrite the statute 

to align with his interpretation. Second, Plaintiff has made no nonfrivolous argument showing 

that creation of the District without an overlapping State of Columbia is unconstitutional. 

10 While the argument is “insubstantial” as a legal matter, it is a weighty one in terms of fairness 

to the District’s residents. Not for nothing, the motto on the District’s license plates is “End 

Taxation Without Representation.” John Kelly, The Story Behind the District’s “Taxation 

Without Representation” License Plates, Wash. Post (July 3, 2021, 6:18 PM), https:// 

www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-license-plates/2021/07/03/2a87418a-db64-11eb-9bbb37c30dcf9363_story.html [https://perma.cc/8XKU-XQZA]. District residents pay more in 

federal taxes per person than do residents of any state, and more in total than do the residents of 

twenty-two states. Maya Efrati, DC Statehood Explained, Brennan Ctr. for Just. (Mar. 18 2022), 

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/dc-statehood-explained [https:// 

perma.cc/5Y6S-4XJX]. 
17 

 Much of Plaintiff’s briefing focuses on Article I, section 2, which provides (as relevant 

here) that “[t]he House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second 

Year by the People of the several States,” and that “Representatives . . . shall be apportioned 

among the several States . . . according to their respective Numbers.” U.S. Const. art. I, § 2. 

Plaintiff agrees that, under this section, he must be a resident of a state to vote for Congress. 

E.g., Opp. ¶¶ 2, 10, 30; Am. Compl. ¶¶ 28, 35, 49. And he concedes that the District is not a 

state. E.g., Surreply ¶ 5; Opp. ¶¶ 21, 24(b); Am. Compl. ¶¶ 16, 32, 46. Notwithstanding those 

concessions, Plaintiff argues that this section in some way entitles him to congressional 

representation, such that the Court must infer that a State of Columbia exists to fill the gap. All 

the evidence against Columbia statehood—constitutional text, purpose, precedent, and settled 

practice—cuts against his theory. See supra Section III.A.2. 

 The Supreme Court’s affirmances in Adams and Castañon, in particular, render 

Plaintiff’s claim “wholly insubstantial.” Shapiro, 577 U.S. at 45 (cleaned up). In both cases, 

three-judge district courts concluded that—far from guaranteeing D.C. residents congressional 

suffrage—Article I, section 2 specifically deprives them of House representation. See Castañon, 

444 F. Supp. 3d at 139, 145; Adams, 90 F. Supp. 2d at 45-65, 71-72. In both cases, the plaintiffs 

appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that Article I, section 2 at least permits congressional 

representation for D.C. residents. See Jurisdictional Statement and Appendix at 25-33, 

Castañon, 142 S. Ct. 56 (No. 20-1279); Jurisdictional Statement at 14-28, Alexander, 531 U.S. 

940 (No. 99-2062);11 see also Ill. State Bd. of Elections v. Socialist Workers Party, 440 U.S. 173, 

11 Two separate groups of plaintiffs appealed the panel decision in Adams; only one—the 

Alexander plaintiffs—focused on Article I, section 2. The other group—the Adams plaintiffs—

concentrated on an equal protection argument. See Jurisdictional Statement, Adams, 531 U.S. 

941 (No. 00-97). For convenience, since both appeals arose from the same underlying district 

court case, the Court refers to that litigation collectively as “Adams.” 
18 

182-83 (1979) (explaining that lower courts should review jurisdictional statements to determine 

issues decided by summary affirmances). And in both cases, the Supreme Court summarily 

affirmed. Castañon, 142 S. Ct. at 56; Alexander, 531 U.S. at 940; see also Castañon, 444 F. 

Supp. 3d at 139 (concluding that “the Supreme Court must have affirmed the Adams holding 

that . . . Article I contemplates that only ‘residents of actual states’ have and may exercise the 

House franchise”). While summary, those affirmances bind this Court. Hicks v. Miranda, 422 

U.S. 332, 344-45 (1975). 

 Plaintiff’s attempt to distinguish these decisions by observing that neither considered his 

state-within-the-District theory, e.g., Opp. ¶ 24(b), does not solve the problem. Adams and 

Castañon squarely considered whether D.C. residents’ lack of congressional suffrage is 

permissible under Article I, section 2. Both concluded that it is. So Plaintiff cannot tenably 

argue that failure to interpret the Organic Act to create a State of Columbia would render the Act 

unconstitutional, at least without presenting some nonfrivolous argument to distinguish or 

undermine those cases. Because he has failed to do so, his case obviously lacks merit. See 

Holmes, 823 F.3d at 74. 

 Even without those decisions, Plaintiff’s claim would plainly fail as a matter of basic 

logic. At bottom, he essentially argues that Article I, section 2 somehow guarantees him a right 

to live in a state. But while that provision gives every qualified U.S. citizen who resides in a 

state a right to vote in congressional elections, it does not mean that every U.S. citizen resides in 

a state. See U.S. Const. art. I, § 2, cl. 1; Adams, 90 F. Supp. 2d at 66; Opp. ¶ 30 (“[A] citizen of 

the U.S. does not have rights of representation through that citizenship, only through their 

citizenship of one of the several States.”). As Plaintiff acknowledges, many U.S. citizens are 

residents of territories and thus neither live in states nor have any right to vote for Congress. See
19 

Am. Compl. ¶ 15(c); Castañon, 444 F. Supp. 3d at 146-47; Adams, 90 F. Supp. 2d at 45-46; 

Segovia v. United States, 880 F.3d 384, 390 (7th Cir. 2018). Plaintiff points out that the District 

is not a “territory” as that term is used in the Constitution, see U.S. Const. art. IV, § 3, cl. 2, but it 

is no less “constitutionally distinct from the States,” Palmore, 411 U.S. at 395. 

 Plaintiff also asserts that, by creating and administering the District without an 

underlying state, Congress would be acting beyond its constitutional authority in violation of the 

Tenth Amendment. See U.S. Const. amend. X (“The powers not delegated to the United States 

by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to 

the people.”). Yet the congressional actions to which Plaintiff objects either did not happen or 

plainly fall within Congress’s authority under the District Clause. For example, Plaintiff asserts 

that “Congress lacks the power to extinguish a sovereign state or involuntarily take part of a 

State.” Am. Compl. ¶ 12. Congress did not “involuntarily take” the territory that became the 

District; Maryland ceded it. 1791 Md. Laws ch. 45, § 2. And Congress accepted it in precisely 

the manner contemplated by the Constitution.12 See U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 17. Plaintiff has 

not made any judicially cognizable Tenth Amendment claim. 

 Plaintiff also cites the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, though he 

provides little explicit discussion of its relevance. Am. Compl. ¶¶ 30, 45. The Court infers that 

he means to rely on the Supreme Court’s decision in Evans v. Cornman, 398 U.S. 419 (1970). 

12 Plaintiff also asserts that Congress cannot “deprive[]” former state residents “of their right to 

representation through their state.” Am. Compl. ¶ 11. That power—in the context of creating 

the District—obviously follows from Congress’s authority to “[a]ccept[]” an area ceded by a 

state to form the District. U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 17. But, in any event, Congress has not 

“deprived” any current D.C. resident of state citizenship. The District has not been a part of 

Maryland for over two centuries. Any living D.C. resident was either born a citizen of the 

District—and so never lived in a state—or chose to move here, voluntarily relinquishing state 

citizenship. See Adams, 90 F. Supp. 2d at 61. 
20 

There, the Court held that Maryland violated the Equal Protection Clause by not allowing 

residents of a federal enclave (the National Institutes of Health)—over which Congress may 

exercise the same exclusive authority as over the District, see U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 17—

located in Maryland to vote in state elections. 398 U.S. at 419, 426. The Court observed that the 

enclave residents remained residents of Maryland, and that, although Congress could in theory 

exercise exclusive jurisdiction over the area, in practice it had not done so, but had instead 

“permitted the State[] to extend important aspects of state powers over” the enclave. Id. at 421-

24. As a result, the area’s residents were “just as interested in and connected with electoral 

decisions as they were [before] . . . the area came under federal jurisdiction and as [were] their 

neighbors who live[d] off the enclave.” Id. at 426. The state therefore could not deny them the 

same voting rights it granted to other state residents. Id. Presumably, Plaintiff means to argue 

that, under Evans, it would be unconstitutional to deny him, as a resident of the federal District, 

representation in Congress while allowing it for residents of federal enclaves, and so the Court 

must infer the existence of a state in which he can vote. Even setting aside the many other 

problems with Plaintiff’s Columbia-statehood theory, Evans does not realistically help Plaintiff 

for at least two reasons. 

 First, both the Adams and the Castañon plaintiffs argued before the Supreme Court that 

Evans required providing D.C. residents with congressional representation. Jurisdictional 

Statement and Appendix at 11-12, 33-35, Castañon, 142 S. Ct. 56; Jurisdictional Statement at 7, 

10, 15-18, Adams, 531 U.S. 941 (No. 00-97). Yet the Supreme Court summarily affirmed both 

district courts’ dismissal of the plaintiffs’ equal protection claims. Castañon, 142 S. Ct. at 56; 

Adams, 531 U.S. at 941. Plaintiff does not discuss, much less try to distinguish, these holdings. 
21 

Cf. Holmes, 823 F.3d at 74. As a result, there is no possible constitutional problem for Columbia 

statehood to remedy. 

 Second, Evans’s conclusion that the Equal Protection Clause forbids providing 

differential voting rights to similarly situated citizens within a state does not mean that residents 

of the states—or even of federal enclaves within the states—and of the District are entitled to the 

same congressional representation. On the contrary, as discussed above, the Constitution 

explicitly contemplates a District outside of any state. Unlike the enclave residents in Evans—

who, the Court emphasized, remained Maryland citizens and over whom Congress had declined 

to exercise exclusive jurisdiction, 398 U.S. at 421-24—Plaintiff lives outside a state in a District 

over which Congress has exercised exclusive jurisdiction. See U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 17 

(providing for a District formed “by Cession of particular States” and enclaves located “in” 

“State[s]”). Plaintiff has raised no substantial equal protection claim—let alone one that could 

even arguably warrant creating a State of Columbia out of whole cloth.13

 Finally, none of the other authorities Plaintiff cites in any way justifies recognizing 

Columbia as a state. Plaintiff suggests that Defendant has violated the so-called equal-footing 

doctrine by treating Columbia unequally from other states. See Am. Compl. ¶¶ 46-47; Coyle v. 

Smith, 221 U.S. 559, 567, 573 (1911) (requiring that Congress admit any new states on equal 

terms with existing ones). That argument matters only if Columbia is a state; it is not an 

13 If Plaintiff instead means to cite Evans in support of his argument that, if Columbia is not a 

state, then he should be able to vote in Maryland, he runs into not only the more general flaws in 

that argument identified below, see infra Section III.B, but also Adams’ discussion of Evans

specifically. The Adams district court rejected the theory that Evans requires allowing D.C. 

residents to vote in Maryland, and, after the plaintiffs again cited Evans on appeal, the Supreme 

Court summarily affirmed. See Adams, 90 F. Supp. 2d at 62-65; Alexander, 531 U.S. at 940; 

Jurisdictional Statement at 7, 23-24, Alexander, 531 U.S. 940. So far as the Court can tell, 

Plaintiff makes no effort, let alone a nonfrivolous one, to distinguish that decision. Cf. Holmes, 

823 F.3d at 74. 
22 

independent reason to treat Columbia as such. If anything, recognizing Columbia as a state only 

for purposes of congressional elections and with most other traditional state functions assigned to 

Congress would create, not remedy, an equal-footing problem. Plaintiff’s claim that Defendant 

has violated Columbia state law similarly assumes that there is such a state, Am. Compl. ¶ 45; 

since there obviously is not, the claim goes nowhere. 

B. Plaintiff’s Alternative Argument that He May Vote in Maryland Is Also 

Wholly Insubstantial 

 Plaintiff’s alternative theory—that, if the District is not a state, the Constitution requires 

that he and other D.C. residents be allowed to vote in Maryland—fares no better. Multiple 

Supreme Court decisions preclude his position, and Plaintiff’s brief effort to distinguish them is 

“obviously without merit.” Shapiro, 577 U.S. at 46 (cleaned up). Even absent these decisions, 

Plaintiff’s position makes no sense. 

 Plaintiff’s argument runs headlong into at least two Supreme Court decisions. First, in 

Albaugh, the district court rejected a claim that D.C. residents have a right to vote in Maryland’s 

congressional elections, concluding that, “[s]ince the Organic Act of 1801, it has been uniformly 

recognized . . . that residents of the District of Columbia are no longer citizens of the State of 

Maryland.” Id. at 577-78 (cleaned up). The plaintiff appealed, raising many of the same 

arguments advanced by Plaintiff here—including that “the Organic Act was not intended to 

‘repeal the existing Maryland Congressional election regulations which defined the District of 

Columbia as a part of the State of Maryland,’ since it provided ‘that the laws of the State of 

Maryland, as they now exist, shall be and continue in force.’” Adams, 90 F. Supp. 2d at 57 n.36 

(cleaned up) (quoting Jurisdictional Statement at 6, Albaugh, 379 U.S. 27 (No. 481)). The 

Supreme Court was having none of it and summarily affirmed. 379 U.S. at 27. 
23 

 The Adams plaintiffs similarly asserted that “residents of the District should be permitted 

to vote in congressional elections through Maryland, based on a theory of ‘residual’ citizenship 

in that state.” 90 F. Supp. 2d at 56. The district court rejected this argument both because 

Albaugh precluded it and, independently, because “the Maryland citizenship of the District's 

inhabitants was extinguished upon the completion of the transfer of the seat of the national 

government to the territory of the District.” Id. at 57. On appeal to the Supreme Court, the 

plaintiffs renewed their argument for the right to vote in Maryland, asserting—much like 

Plaintiff—that “the cession legislation that created the national capital was and is incapable of 

taking away the constitutional rights of District residents” and that “[a]lthough the cession 

legislation may take away District residents’ Maryland citizenship for most purposes,” it could 

not “strip them of their constitutional right to vote in congressional elections, nor . . . of their 

state citizenship to the extent that that citizenship is inextricably linked to rights of national 

citizenship.” Jurisdictional Statement at 20, Alexander, 531 U.S. 940. Again the Supreme Court 

summarily affirmed. 531 U.S. at 940. 

 Plaintiff makes no nonfrivolous effort to distinguish these precedents. The closest he 

comes is asserting that Adams “did not take into account” the 1791 Maryland cession statute’s 

stipulation “that the jurisdiction of the laws of [Maryland], over the persons and property of 

individuals residing within the limits of the cession . . . shall not cease or determine until 

congress shall by law provide for the government thereof, under their jurisdiction, in manner 

provided by [Article I, 8].” Opp. ¶ 13(c) & n.1. As discussed above, however, by that statute’s 

clear terms, any residual jurisdiction Maryland exercised over the District expired more than two 

centuries ago when Congress created a new government under its District Clause powers. See 

Adams, 90 F. Supp. 2d at 59. Plaintiff’s interpretation of the statute as creating an indestructible, 
24 

indefeasible right to vote in Maryland elections is “essentially fictitious,” Shapiro, 577 U.S. at 45 

(cleaned up), and does not get him around Adams and Albaugh, which plainly foreclose his 

voting-in-Maryland theory. 

 Of course, Plaintiff’s theory would raise eyebrows even were this the first Court to 

encounter it. As Chief Justice Marshall observed in 1805, “[b]y the separation of the 

[D]istrict . . . from the state of Maryland, [D.C. residents] ceased to be . . . citizen[s] of that 

state.” Reily v. Lamar, 6 U.S. (2 Cranch) 344, 356-57 (1805); see also supra Section III.A.2 

(discussing evidence that District is distinct from any state). Plaintiff recognizes as much. Am. 

Compl. ¶ 9 (acknowledging that, when Maryland ceded the territory that became the District, its 

residents “ceased to be citizens of . . . Maryland”). The District now is no more a part of (and 

Plaintiff is no more a resident of) Maryland than of Alaska or Hawaii. 

 As a result, Plaintiff’s requested relief would raise several novel constitutional problems. 

The Court understands Plaintiff to seek to vote in Maryland only in congressional elections; he 

claims that the Court should treat Maryland as his state only “with respect to [his] . . . right to 

representation in Congress.” Opp. ¶ 13(c). If he hopes to vote for Congress in Maryland, 

however, he must “have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of 

the State Legislature.” U.S. Const. art. I, § 2, cl. 1. And if he aspires not just to vote but also to 

run for office himself, to represent Maryland in the House he must “be an Inhabitant of that 

State.” Id. art. I, § 2, cl. 2; see Adams, 90 F. Supp. 2d at 60 n.47 (describing this requirement as 

an “important piece of evidence” against allowing D.C. residents to vote in Maryland). The 

Court cannot reconcile these requirements with Plaintiff’s proposal to become a limited-purpose 

Marylander. That proposal would have at least teetered on the edge of frivolity before Adams 
25 

and Albaugh; after those decisions, it is obviously meritless. Shapiro, 577 U.S. at 46 (cleaned 

up). 

* * * 

 The Court’s “close analysis,” Feinberg, 522 F.2d at 1339, of Plaintiff’s case confirms 

what even a cursory glance suggested: both his primary theory that there is a hitherto-unknown 

fifty-first state lurking in the District and his fallback position that the Court must unwind two 

centuries of history and allow D.C. residents to vote for Congress in Maryland are “essentially 

fictitious” and thus outside the Court’s jurisdiction, Shapiro, 577 U.S. at 45 (cleaned up). 

 A final note: Defendant asks the Court to “warn [Plaintiff] that further [frivolous] suits 

could well . . . lead to the imposition” of a prefiling injunction barring him from filing other 

cases in this District without leave of court. Mot. at 18 (cleaned up). It is true that, were 

Plaintiff to file so many “frivolous or harassing” cases as to “threaten[] the administration of 

justice,” such an injunction might be appropriate. Klayman v. Porter, 104 F.4th 298, 306-07 

(D.C. Cir. 2024) (cleaned up). But Plaintiff’s conduct thus far—filing an amicus brief in support 

of the government in Castañon, a complaint dismissed for failure to name the proper defendant in 

Page I, and now this case—does not approach that level. See id. at 306-11 (describing prefiling 

injunction as “extreme remedy” and “tool of last resort” (cleaned up)). Indeed, while the Court 

has had to use some harsh language in analyzing Plaintiff’s arguments to assess its jurisdiction 

over this case, it nonetheless applauds Plaintiff’s commitment to his ideals. Defendant’s labeling 

of Plaintiff as a “vexatious” litigant, Dkt. 26 at 7, is substantially premature. 
26 

IV. CONCLUSION AND ORDER 

 The policy arguments against depriving 690,000 D.C. residents of congressional 

representation are compelling. Plaintiff’s legal arguments are wholly frivolous. As a result, the 

Court lacks jurisdiction to hear, and so must dismiss, this case. 

For these reasons, the Court hereby GRANTS Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss, Dkt. 23; 

DISMISSES Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint, Dkt. 22, and this case without prejudice; and 

DIRECTS the Clerk of Court to close this case. 

SO ORDERED.

 This is a final appealable Order. See Fed. R. App. P. 4(a). 

Date: July 23, 2024 

_________________________ 

ANA C. REYES 

 United States District Judge