So one of the conditions for Utah to be admitted to the Union was that it outlaw polygamy. It did, and it became a state in 1896.
What if the ban on polygamy were rescinded? Would Utah cease to become a state?
Conress can’t revoke statehood (notwindstaning Reconstruction), but if Utah did legalize polygyny no other state would have to recognize it and neither would the federal government. The Defence of Marriage Act prohibts the federal government from recognize anything other than 1 man, 1 woman.
No, the ban took the form of a requirement that an anti-polygamy provision be included in the Utah constitution prior to admission. The exact wording of the federal enabling act is that
The Utah Constitution dutifully incorporated the required “ordinance” within the Utah Constitution itself, which reads:
So the state constitution now requires federal consent to amend this particular provision. Is this constitutional? I don’t know. The only way we would have a test case would be if the legislature and voters would attempt to amend this provision and bypass the federal government. I’m not holding my breath waiting for this to happen.
In any case, nothing in the federal enabling act envisions revoking Utah’s statehood after admission; nor would such a thing be possible.
I think the general statement here is that Congress can put whatever restrictions it cares to on granting statehood to a would-be-a-state territory, but once it’s been admitted, it becomes possessed of equal residual sovereignty to any other state, and cannot be deprived of statehood or stopped from changing those conditions, except to the extent that it binds itself in order to become a state. For example, if a condition of, say, Wyoming statehood was that it had to have 100,000 residents to become a state, and the 2030 census shows it at 98,234, it doesn’t lose statehood; it had enough to become admitted. If, e.g., Puerto Rico sought statehood, and a certain bloc of U.S. legislators insisted that it adopt a law making English its official language as a condition to becoming a state, then it would have to do so. And promptly after becoming a state, it could repeal that law, and there’s not one thing they could do about it.
In the Utah case, Utah bound itself in its Constitution to never permit polygamous or plural marriages, and not to change that provision without consent of the Federal government.
I’ve been trying to google with no luck, but didn’t one state have a provision allowing for the recall of their elected officials? Congress refused to allow the state admission with that provision in that state’s constitution. The state removed the provision and reinstated it after statehood was granted.
I’m not familiar with any federal law by that name. There are many such laws in individual states, but could I have a cite on a federal version?
The DOMA is the one act I strongly disagree with President Clinton on.