JURISDICTION OVER FEDERAL AREAS WITHIN



                              THE STATES





                              CHAPTER I



                           OUTLINE OF STUDY





   The instant study was occasioned by the denial to a group of

children of Federal employees residing on the grounds of a Veterans'

Administration hospital of the opportunity of attending public schools

in the town in which the hospital was located.  An administrative

decision against the children was affirmed by local courts, finally

including the supreme court of the State.  The decisions were based on

the ground that residents of the area on which the hospital was

located were not residents of the State since "exclusive legislative

jurisdiction" over such area had been ceded by the State to the

Federal Government, and therefore they were not entitled to privileges

of State residency.

   In an ensuing study of the State supreme court decision with a view

toward applying to the Supreme Court of the United States for a writ

of certiorari, the Department of Justice ascertained that State laws

and practices relating to the subject of Federal legislative

jurisdiction are very different in different States, that practices of

Federal agencies with respect to the same subject very extremely from

agency to agency without apparent basis, and that the Federal

Government, the States, residents of Federal areas, and others, are

all suffering serious disabilities and disadvantages because of a

general lack of knowledge or understanding of the subject of Federal

legislative jurisdiction and its consequences.

   Article I, section 8, clause 17, of the Constitution of the United

States, the text of which is set out in appendix B to this report,

provides in legal effect that the Federal Government shall have

exclusive legislative jurisdiction over such area not exceeding 10

miles square as may become the seat of government of the United

States, and like authority over all places acquired by the Government,

with the consent of the State involved, for Federal works.  It is the

latter portion of this clause, the portion which has been emphasized,

with which this report is primarily concerned.



                                 (1)







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   The status of the District of Columbia, as the seat of government

area referred to in the first part of the clause, is fairly well

known. It is not nearly as well known that under the second part of

the clause the Federal Government has acquired, to the exclusion of

the states, jurisdiction such as it exercises with respect to the

District of Columbia over several thousand areas scattered over the 48

States. Federal acquisition of legislative jurisdiction over such

areas has made of them Federal islands within Stats, which the term

"enclaves" is frequently used to describe.

   While these enclaves, which are used for all the many Federal

governmental purposes, such as post offices, arsenals, dams, roads,

etc, usually are owned by the Government, the United States in many

cases has received similar jurisdictional authority over privately

owned properties which it leases, or privately owned and occupied

properties which are located within the exterior boundaries of a large

area (such as the District of columbia and various national parks) as

to which a State has ceded jurisdiction to the United States.  On the

other hand, the Federal Government has only a proprietorial interest,

within vast areas of lands which it owns, for Federal proprietorship

over land and Federal exercise of legislative jurisdiction with

respect to land are not interdependent.  And, as the Committee will

endeavor to make clear, the extent of jurisdictional control which the

government may have over land can and does vary to an almost infinite

number of degrees between exclusive legislative jurisdiction and a

proprietorial interest only.

   The Federal Government is being required to furnish to areas within

the States over which it has jurisdiction in various forms

governmental services and facilities which its structure is not

designed to supply efficiently or economically.  The relationship

between States and persons residing in Federal areas in those States

is disarranged and disrupted, with tax losses, lack of police control,

and other disadvantages to the States.  Many residents of federally

owned areas are deprived of numerous privileges and services, such as

voting, and certain access to courts, which are the usual incidents of

residence within a State.  In short, it was found by the Department of

Justice that this whole important field of Federal-State relations was

in a confused and chaotic state, and that more was needed a thorough

study of the entire subject of legislative jurisdiction with a view

toward resolving as many as possible of the problems which lack of

full knowledge and understanding of the subject had bred.







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   The Attorney general so recommended to the President and the

Cabinet, and with their approval and support the instant study

resulted.  The preface to this report identifies the agencies, State

and Federal, which most actively participated in the study; subsequent

portions of the report set out in some detail the results of the

study. The Committee desires to outline at this point, so as to

furnish assistance for evaluation of its report, the manner in which

the study was conducted, the manner in which the Committee's report is

being presented, and some of the problems involved.

   The land area of the United States is 1,903,824,640 acres.  It was

ascertained from available sources that of this area the Federal

Government, as of a recent date, owned 405,088,566 acres, or more than

21 percent of the continental United States.  It owns more than 87

percent of the land in the State of Nevada, over 50 percent of the

land in several other States, and considerable land in every State of

the Union.  The Department of the Interior controls lands having a

total area greater than that of all the six New England State and

Texas combined.  The Department of Agriculture control more than three

fourths as much land as the Department of the Interior.  Altogether 23

agencies of the Federal Government control property owned by the

United States outside of the District of Columbia.  Any survey

relating to these lands is therefore bound to constitute a

considerable project.

   The Committee formulated a plan of study, of which portions

requiring such approval were approved by the Bureau of the Budget

under the Federal Reports Act of 1942 (B. B. No. 43-5501).  This plan

involved the assignment to a number of Federal agencies of various

tasks which they were especially fitted to perform or as to which they

had accumulated information; the circularization to all agencies of

the Government which acquire, occupy, or operate real property of a

questionnaire (questionnaire A) designed to elicit general

information, concerning the numbers, areas, uses and jurisdictional

statuses of their properties and the practices, problems, policies,

and recommendations related to jurisdictional status which the

agencies might have; and the forwarding of an additional questionnaire

(questionnaire B) for each individual Federal installation in three

States (Virginia, Kansas, and California, selected as containing

properties which would illustrate jurisdictional problems arising

throughout the United States) which called for detailed information of

the same character as that requested by the general questionnaire

addressed to agencies.  Federal agencies also were asked to submit a

synopsis of all opinions of their chief law officers concerning

matters affected by legislative jurisdiction.







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   Pursuant to further provisions of the plan of study the attorney

general of each State was requested, through the National Association

of Attorneys General, to furnish to the Committee a synopsis and

citation of each State constitutional provision, statute, judicial

decision, and attorney general opinion, concerning the acquisition of

legislative jurisdiction by the United States over lands within the

State; a statement of major problems experienced by State or local

authorities arising out of legislative jurisdiction; an indication of

privileges or services barred by State constitution or statutes to

areas under United States legislative jurisdiction or residents of

such areas, and any further comment concerning the subject which any

attorney general might have.

   A tremendous mass of information has been accumulated by the

committee in the carrying out of the mentioned portions of the plan of

study.  Material submitted by the 23 Federal agencies which control

federally owned land was refined by the Committee staff into memoranda

which, in the case of the 18 larger agencies, were made available to

each agency concerned for comment.  The basic material involved, as

well as the staff memoranda and agency comment thereon, was utilized

by the committee as was necessary in its study.

   The results of the Committee's study are reflected in the

succeeding pages of this report, in the two appendixes to the report,

and in a second report (Pt.II) which is under preparation.

   The instant report (Pt.I) sets out the facts adduced by the

Committee and recommendations of the Committee with respect thereto.

In this portion of its work the Committee has labored to avoid to the

utmost extent possible any legalistic discussions.  Citations to

constitutional provisions, statutes, or court decisions are made only

when it seems inescapably necessary to make them, and rarely is any

law quoted in the body of the report.  It is the hope of the Committee

that this approach will make this report more useful than it otherwise

might be to nonlawyer officials, Federal and State, who have occasion

to deal with problems arising from ownership, possession or control of

land in the States by the Federal Government.



   Appendix A to this report summarizes the basic factual information

received from individual Federal agencies in connection with this

study and sets out briefly the views of the agencies as to the

legislative jurisdictional requirements of properties under their

control.  It is on this information received in reply to

questionnaires A and B, already referred to, that the Committee has

largely based its determinations as to the jurisdictional requirements

of Federal agencies.

   Appendix B contains the texts of all constitutional provisions and

major statutes of general effect, Federal and States, directly

affecting







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legislative jurisdiction, as such provisions and statutes were in

effect on December 31, 1955, with explanatory material relating

thereto.  The contents of this appendix were necessarily developed for

analytical purposes during the course of the study and are included

with the report as a logical supplement and as of particular value to

lawyers and legislators for independent analysis.

   The second report of the Committee (Pt.II) will be a legal text on

the subject of legislative jurisdiction.  It will include

consideration of salient Federal and States constitutional provisions,

statutes, and court decisions, and opinions of major importance of

principal Federal and State law officers, which have come to the

attention of the Committee in the courses of the exhaustive study it

has endeavored to make of this subject.

   There has been assimilated into the Committee's reports all the

legal learning in the legislative jurisdiction field of the members of

the Committee and of their predecessor chief law officers, as the

Committee has interpreted this learning from opinions rendered by

these officers.  To this has been added consideration of legal

opinions of other chief law officers of the Federal Government,

including the Attorney General and the Comptroller General, and of

attorneys general of the several States, of court decisions in some

1,000 Federal and state cases, of matter in innumerable textbooks and

legal periodicals, and of all manner of factual and legal information

related to legislative jurisdiction submitted by 33 agencies of the

Federal Government.

   The Committee notes that there has never before been conducted a

study of the subject of  legislative jurisdiction approaching in

comprehensiveness the survey of the facts and the law which has been

made.  While the Committee's reports cannot reflect every detail of

the study, it is hoped that they will provide a basis for resolving

most of the problems arising out of legislative jurisdiction

situations.