DC to get Congressional vote
The Senate voted to take up the issue of giving the District of Columbia voting membership in the House of Representatives according to the Washington Times;
District residents have waited roughly 200 years for full voting rights. The legislation would give the Democratic-lean District one vote and the Republican-leaning Utah another House vote.
Well, that’s not true at all really – since there’s no one in the District who is 200 years old and lost their vote because of districting and every single one of the District’s residents live in DC voluntarily fully knowing they’d have no representation by choosing to move there. By moving about 5 miles in any direction, anyone who lives in the District could get voting representation in Congress if it was really that important to them.
Joe Lieberman contributes to the confusion;
“A grave injustice has been done to the residents of the District simply because they live in the United States capital,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman, Connecticut independent and chief sponsor of the Senate bill.
No, they did it to themselves by choosing to live in the District, Joe. Typical liberal thinking that everything happens in the context that exists in time warp.
Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican, argued that a bill granting the District congressional representation is sure to face a legal challenge if passed.
“The Senate should not pass legislation that we believe is unconstitutional,” Mr. Kyl said. “We should not pass the buck to the courts.”
Critics say the bill violation of Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution, which states “representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states.”
The District is not considered a state and is largely overseen by Congress.
That’s what the Democrats do on a regular basis; let the courts decide stuff that might take a little backbone to settle. Why don’t they make an amendment to the Constitution? Because they might lose the vote when it comes to a consensus from the States.
The only people to whom it really matters are the DC politicians. The people have been fooled into believing they’re powerless because they don’t have a vote when billions of dollars pour into the District’s coffers (otherwise known as A Dark Hole) without that vote. The only thing this does is employ one more useless politician and one more useless staff in the District.
The last time DC thought they were going to get representation in Congress in the 1990s, they elected Jesse Jackson as a straw-Senator. Jackson doesn’t even claim DC as his home yet the clueless morons of the District elected him to represent them nonetheless.
Category: Politics
I have several co-workers living in DC and they are all for “finally having a representative to champion our causes”… They chose to come to DC from those 5 miles out and now they are complaining that the DC cannot solve the AIDS problem because the Congress does not want to vote for the needle-exchange program in order not to look “soft on drugs” and they LOVE Landrieu who is “the real friend of the District” because she works for “us”… When confronted with the question why they want to be represented by someone who is not working for the people who actully elected her as their representative – the answer is we do not care about LA, we do not have a representative and we want our issues to be resolved…
These are the same people who elected Marion Barry how many times?
I never understood why anyone would want to live inside the District in the first effin’ place. Stray 2 blocks off of the Federal campus, and you’d think you landed in Watts or some Turd World DMZ. I could imagine someone on a Grey Line tour riding around DC with the guide saying “If you look to our left, this is what’s known as Embassy Row…note the exterior architecture of the Russian Embassy…and if you look to our right, that’s what is known as a prostitute selling heroin…as you can see, her pimp is close by, picking up spent brass from the sidewalk to sell to a gun store owner in Manassas for reloads…”
This will get overturned by the courts in no time flat.
So, enjoy the representation while you have it DC.
I’ve always thought an easy solution stares us in the face: DC residents should be exempt from federal income tax.
[…] DC to get Congressional vote – This ain’t Hell […]
Founder George Mason said, “No free government, or the blessings of liberty can be preserved to any people, but by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.” James Madison said “The people were in fact, the fountain of all power, and by resorting to them, all difficulties were got over. They could alter constitutions as they pleased. It was a principle in the Bills of rights, that first principles might be resorted to.” Our Constitution is a document written in an attempt to “form a more perfect Union”. One of the basic, bedrock fundamental principles upon which democracy and its variations (such as a democratic republic) are based is “Consent of the Governed”. Consent is determined by majority consensus, with special protections afforded to the rights of minorities. One of the most basic implications of this approach is that “the people” consist of ALL of the people. If a minority of the people are excluded from even participating in the process of decisionmaking by the majority, that exclusion tends to erode the legitimacy of the entire system. Such is the situation of the long-suffering residents of the District of Columbia. Excluded from participation in the national decisionmaking process nearly from the begining of the Republic by the tyranny of the majority (those living in the fifty states), their exclusion (along with the now-corrected one-time exclusion of blacks, women, and young adults under the age of 21) has tended to erode the legitimacy of the rule of law, under self-evident, bedrock, fundamental democratic principles such as Consent of the Governed. Consent of the Governed has not been afforded denizens of the District since 1801. The current Constitution is hardly even their Constitution today, since they have not been afforded an opportunity to participate in decisionmaking that resulted in Amendments 12 through 27 (since 1801). The Courts, likewise, are hardly even their courts, since they have not had representatives with an opportunity to participate in decisions (advise and consent) regarding their staffing and operation, since 1801. Finally, the Congress is hardly even their Congress, since they have had no vote, and precious little voice,… Read more »
If DC went fed tax free, you’d have thousands moving there, and at least that would push the trash out and clean up our nations capitol.