in the Virginia Declaration of Rights: Justice Hugo Black described the right to vote as fundamental in Wesberry v. Sanders, . He wrote, "No right is more precious in a free country than that of having a voice in the election of those who make the laws under which, as good citizens, we must live. Other rights, even the most basic, are illusory if the right to vote is undermined." The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act allows U.S. citizens to vote absentee for their home state's Congressional representatives from anywhere else in the world. If a U.S. citizen were to move to the District, that person would lose the ability to vote for a member of Congress. U.S. citizens who have permanently left the United States are still permitted to vote absentee for the Congress in the state where they last held residency. Scholars have argued that if U.S. citizens who are residents of other countries are allowed to vote in federal elections, then Congress can extend the same rights to residents of the nation's capital. Constitutional provisions The primary objection to legislative proposals to grant the District voting rights is that some Constitution provisions suggest that such an action would be unconstitutional. How the House of Representatives is to be composed is described in Article I, Section 2: Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment reaffirms Article I, Section 2 in that regard when it says: In addition, the Seventeenth Amendment correspondingly describes the election of "two Senators from each State". Those who believe D.C. voting rights legislation would be unconstitutional point out that the District of Columbia is not a U.S. state. Advocates of voting rights legislation claim that Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 (the District Clause), which grants Congress "exclusive" legislative authority over the District, allows the Congress to pass legislation that would grant D.C. voting representation in the Congress. The Twenty-third Amendment says the District is entitled to: Since this amendment's adoption in 1961, the District has had three electoral votes in each presidential election. Tax arguments Unlike residents of U.S. territories such as Puerto Rico or Guam, which also have non-voting delegates, citizens of the District of Columbia are subject to all U.S. federal taxes. In fiscal year 2007, D.C. residents and businesses paid $20.4 billion in federal taxes; more than the taxes collected from 19 states and the highest federal taxes per