Delegate (United States Congress)
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A Delegate to Congress is a non-voting member of the United States House of Representatives who is elected from a U.S. territory or from the District of Columbia. While unable to vote in the full House, a non-voting Delegate may vote in a House committee of which the Delegate is a member.
A "territory," under U.S. law, is a distinct, often largely self-governed jurisdiction inhabited by U.S. citizens that for constitutional, historical or political reasons, is not an actual state. Under the United States Constitution only states are granted full voting representation in both chambers of the Congress.
Currently, three U.S. territories are represented by non-voting Delegates—American Samoa, Guam, and the United States Virgin Islands. There is an effort underway to likewise grant to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands a non-voting Delegate.
The District of Columbia, otherwise known as Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States, is technically a federal district—not a territory, commonwealth or insular area—but, for purposes of representatation in the House, is nevertheless entitled to a non-voting Delegate.
Puerto Rico, a U.S. Commonwealth, is represented by a non-voting "Resident Commissioner" who holds a status similar to that of a Delegate within the House, but who serves a four-year term. The Resident Commissioner is the only individual elected to the House who has a four-year term—all remaining non-voting Delegates and all regularly voting traditional Representatives, serve a term consisting of only two years. During its time as a U.S. Commonwealth, the Philippines also sent a non-voting Resident Commissioner to the House from 1907 to 1945.
Delegates serve exclusively in the House of Representatives—the Senate does not include any counterpart official from U.S. areas that do not possess statehood status.
In 1993, the 103rd Congress approved a rule change that allowed the four Delegates and the Resident Commissioner to vote on the floor of the House, but only in the Committee of the Whole. However, if any measure passed or failed in the Committee of the Whole because of a Delegate's vote, a second vote—excluding the Delegates—would be taken. In other words, Delegates were permitted to vote only if their votes had no effect on a measure's ultimate outcome. In 1995, this rule change was reversed by the 104th Congress, stripping the Delegates of even non-decisive votes. The reversal was denounced as a case of partisanship by Democrats—which all five of the Delegates either were or were allied with—at the time, and which was made after Republicans gained control of the House for the first time in 40 years. Republicans countered that the former rule essentially gave the Democrats five more votes to which they were not constitutionally entitled.
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