(cross-posted to The Agonist)
DEPT. OF MARKING TIME: Could This Be the Year?
For decades now, eyes have rolled and members of Congress have fled for the exits when the perennial nags from the D.C. voting rights movement have come around with their incessant whining about the terrible injustice visited upon the people of Washington. Elected officials well-schooled in the art of saying “No” without ever actually using the word made a special exception: No, no, no, they told D.C. residents, you may not have a seat in Congress. And if you don’t like it, you can move to a state.
If you’ve ever been to the District of Columbia, you understand what a strange and unique place it truly is. Blessed with something like five or six different police agencies, all of them with juridisdiction you couldn’t possibly begin to understand, you could be ticketed for a parking violation by one agency and then see your vehicle towed by yet another…with no explanation. DC is also home to one of the most depressing and dangerous slums in America- Anacostia, which smart White Folks avoid at all costs. DC is blessed with one of the most corrupt and inept local governments in the country (et tu, Marion Berry??). If you think the DMV is inept, insensitive, and slow where you live, try moving to DC- where they know from inept, insensitive, and slow.
Parking is impossible, the cost of housing is ridiculous, and the crime rate ain’t exactly a thing of beauty. I suppose this is what happens when you put Congress in charge of what’s arguably the capitol of the entire Free World. In spite of all this, though, or perhaps because of it, there’s still one very real and legitimate gripe that most Washingtonians have. NO ONE represents them in Congress. Yes, they can vote, but they have no voice in the decisions that are made that impact them directly. Fair? DC residents are Americans, and they pay taxes like you and me. Yet the federal government has consistently refused to allowed them to have a voice in how the government they help to pay for conducts itself.
Santayana was right: Those who don’t know history are condemned to repeat it.
Can you say “TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION”?
Well, strap yourselves in, because the rollercoaster journey toward adding a seat in the House for the District has reached its most ambitious height since the 1970s, and the wild ride is now heading into the Senate. A bill that would create one seat for Washington — an assuredly Democratic slot — and an additional one for Utah — a Republican gimme — passed the House last month by a vote of 241 to 177.
How this happened is almost as remarkable as the fact that the Senate is about to consider the issue. A battle that has been stuck on repeat for half a century has been altered by savvy political maneuvering and the desire by both political parties to stake out some moral high ground while the nation fights an unpopular war.
The arguments over D.C. voting rights always centered on two questions: Does the Constitution allow the District to have a seat in Congress? And why should Republicans consent to creating a seat that would be Democratic from now until at least the end of time?
But the D.C. voting rights issue has morphed into a way for Congress to address far less parochial questions, including the nation’s political polarization, its inexorable ethnic diversification, its declining status in the world and a yearning for moral leadership at home.
Republicans have traditionally resisted granting representation to DC, because to them it would likely mean one more Democrat in Congress working to thwart their agenda. Democrats, of course, have lobbied for representation for DC for exactly this reason. There is, of course, one other reason that doesn’t play into the politcal pas de deux that traditionally describes this argument. The people of Washington, DC should have representation BECAUSE IT’S THE RIGHT THING TO DO. They pay taxes to the very government they live amongst, and yet they have no voice in that government.
If I remember my American history correctly, I seem to recall a revolution started on these shores for this very reason. It’s time to do the right thing, regardless of which party happens to be in power. Americans deserve to be represented, they deserve to have a voice in their government. What kind of message does it send when the residents of the capitol of the Free World have no voice in their own government?
It’s time for the people of the District of Columbia to have a representative in Congress, It’s time to do the right thing.
