<P> Lipez, on his concurrence opinion on a section of The Constitutional Argument indicated: </P> <P> - Concurring Opinion Follows - </P> <P> As Judge Torruella points out, the view that the Constitution does not necessarily forbid extensions of the rights it delineates has been articulated in scholarly writing, and it underlies the effort to legislate voting rights for residents of the District of Columbia . See Opinion of Torruella, J.; see also José R. Coleman Tió, Comment, Six Puerto Rican Congressmen Go to Washington, 116 Yale L.J. 1389, 1394 (2007). Judge Torruella aptly invokes as well precedent applying the same notion of the Constitution's reach - i.e., that it neither requires nor prohibits conferring rights on citizens outside the States - in the context of diversity jurisdiction . That precedent, including the Supreme Court's decision in National Mutual Insurance Co. v. Tidewater Transfer Co., 337 U.S. 582 (1949), confirmed Congress's power to extend diversity jurisdiction to the District of Columbia even though the provisions of Article III creating such jurisdiction refer only to States . By analogy, such cases support the argument that references in Article I to the voting rights of the people of "the States" are not necessarily negative references to the voting rights of citizens residing in other United States jurisdictions . Cf . Adams v. Clinton, 90 F. Supp. 2d 35, 95 (D.D.C. 2000) (Oberdorfer, J., dissenting in part) ("(T) he use of the term' State' in the diversity jurisdiction clause of the Constitution cannot mean' and not of the District of Columbia ."' (citing Tidewater)). </P> <P> Moreover, the redressability concern that underlay my concurrence in Igartúa III stemmed in large part from the courts' inability to order Congress to take the only actions that I thought could deliver the remedy the plaintiffs sought - "to either admit Puerto Rico as a state or to propose a Constitutional amendment allocating electors to Puerto Rico ." See 417 F. 3d at 154 . If Puerto Rico residents' right to vote originates from a source of United States law other than the Constitution, however, it is possible that declaratory relief could properly involve individual government officials rather than Congress . For example, precedent indicates that the Secretary of Commerce is empowered to take the steps necessary to conform the apportionment process to the law . See Franklin v. Massachusetts, 505 U.S. 788, 802 (1992) (plurality opinion) (noting that "injunctive relief against executive officials like the Secretary of Commerce is within the courts' power") (citing Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952)); Adams, 90 F. Supp. 2d at 41 (noting that the Secretary of Commerce is tasked with reporting the population of each state to the President for congressional apportionment). </P>

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