Missoulian Hits Nail on Head With DC Voting Rights

Technically... (0.00 / 0)

There are better solutions that will give DC residents a vote.  Statehood is one, but the best idea is for Virginia to reclaim  its land much like Maryland has done.  That way, only the federal part of the federal city would be excluded would be the places of business and states like Montana wouldn't find their representation further diluted.

This solution also appeases the partisan hacks like me that don't like the idea of arbitrarily creating another safe Dem district.  For good or for bad, the pragmatics of the situation guarantee a partisan filibuster under the "give DC its own rep" plan.

The question then, is whether the Democrat Party has decided to act like a majority party and actually work toward compromise legislation that has a chance of passing to enact their stated goals.  Or are they still more interested in empty political posturing?  Judging from their continued refusal to pass an SCHIP bill that increases funding by a lower amount that will not be vetoed, my hunch is the latter, in which case the Partisan blame lies with the Democrats who won't pass a bill that doesn't benefit them politically.

In other words: There's a way to get this done that won't provide an unreasonable benefit to either party.  Dems won't move forward on this because they are more interested in their own partisan gain than actually accomplishing their stated goal.

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by: MTSentinel @ Wed Jan 30, 2008 at 02:37:46 AM UTC

Virginia has land in the District? (0.00 / 0)

Time to check the maps but last time I checked DC is entirely on the Eastern side of the Potomac, thus entirely in Maryland.  So VA does not have any land to reclaim from the Federal Enclave.  Furthermore I am pretty sure Virginia reclaimed all of its Federal donation pre-civil war.  

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by: Adri @ Wed Jan 30, 2008 at 04:04:07 AM UTC

Oops! (0.00 / 0)

You're right; I got my DC border states mixed up.  I meant Maryland should reclaim it's land much like Virginia did.  Thanks for the correction.

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by: MTSentinel @ Wed Jan 30, 2008 at 12:30:10 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

And what if Maryland won't take the land? (0.00 / 0)

Folks in DC should have to wait for Maryland to act? Or the feds should force Maryland to expand its borders?

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by: Matt Singer @ Wed Jan 30, 2008 at 18:36:54 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

They could just ask (0.00 / 0)

If this is such an important issue, why not just ask Maryland to reclaim it's land?  Maryland is the wealthiest state in the US per capita, but it's also notoriously populated with do-gooders that love to spend rich people's money.  If the cause of the DC vote is so important, I'm sure the place that let's illegal immigrants vote (Takoma Park) and the city that succeeded from it's own county in order to pass higher taxes (Balimore) will be happy to accept their brethren from DC into the fold.

And if they refuse, let the Feds force jurisdiction upon them at the same boundaries that it was originally created when Maryland became a state.  I won't lose too much sleep over that - after all, we're talking about 600,000 unrepresented American citizens here!

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by: MTSentinel @ Thu Jan 31, 2008 at 04:01:27 AM UTC

[ Parent ]

It's called "retrocession" (0.00 / 0)

For the District of Columbia to retrocede to Maryland, the following would need to happen:

* Approval by the legislature of Maryland
* Approval by the citizens of the District of Columbia
* Approval by the full Congress and the President

Virginia--which benefits tremendously by its proximity to the District--will have something to say about this issue.

Good luck.

Retrocession bills (or "reunion" bills, as proponants say) have been introduced to Congress by Rep. Ralph Regula (R-OH) and Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA).

The main group in the DC area supporting retrocession is the Committee for the Capital City, see:
http://washingtonmd.org/

When DC and civil rights groups won home rule (an elected mayor and council rather than commissioners appointed by the President), and President Nixon signed the bill on Christmas 1973, they also created the "National Capital Service Area," an area within the District considered most important to the feds.  See:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/us...

For purposes of a Payment in Lieu of Taxes, the NCSA would be a good place to start in calculating fair compensation.  However, the feds have never appointed a NCSA Director and are, of course, uninterested.

If the District were to retrocede or become a state, the NCSA would likely become the new "Washington, DC" and it would remain under the exclusive legislative authority of Congress, like military bases.

Here's a good summary of a whole range of efforts made on the DC voting rights issue:
http://sourcewatch.org/index.p...

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by: DCcolonyman @ Thu Jan 31, 2008 at 16:13:43 PM UTC

[ Parent ]

Blast from the Missoulian's editorial past (0.00 / 0)

Thanks for highlighting this editorial and this issue.  The 600,000 people who live in the D.C. deserve full representation in the US Congress, just like the rest of us (theoretically, anyway) get.  The vast, vast majority of these full time residents in DC are just ordinary folks living, working and raising their family in the city...not politicians or lobbyists.  Heck, most of the power-brokers in DC, probably live in the 'burbs out of the district anyway. Somebody has to say it, so here it goes: If DC was 90% white and voted 52% republican this issue would have been solved long ago.  Heck, maybe even Bush would have deemed the issue the "defining ideological struggle of the 21st century," to take a term from his latest SOTU speech.

But the one thing I immediately thought of when I read this latest Missoulian editorial was a previous Missoulian editorial about this same exact issue.  I have a good memory for stuff like that.

The editorial was written in August of 2005 and you can check it out here:
http://www.missoulian.com/arti...

It's interesting to compare the two editorials on the same exact subject, especially because since the 2005 editorial was written the editorial board at the Missoulian has changed significantly, most notably the recent additions of a new publisher and a new editorial page editor.

Keeping this change-over in mind, which, by the way, I think has been very good for the paper and their editorial page, I'll leave you with this paragraph from the 2005 editorial and ask if you think the 600,000 ordinary folks living, working and raising their family in DC fit into this picture?

"We should, however, note that the problem is largely theoretical. In practical terms, Washingtonians suffer less from taxation without representation than they do spending without representation. The federal government doesn't exactly turn a profit on the District of Columbia, now does it? What's more, that bit about no representation isn't exactly right, either. Many, many members of Congress develop quite an attachment to Washington, D.C., shortly after settling in. Representatives and senators have a tendency to go native and sometimes need reminding from the folks back home about exactly who it is they represent. Even after leaving office, few of our congressmen and senators have returned to Montana, preferring instead to stay in or around the District of Columbia. At times, it seems Washington, D.C., has hundreds of seats in Congress. True, many of them are aligned with the K Street area dominated by lobbyists' offices, but it certainly would be tough to argue that the District of Columbia gets less consideration from Congress than the rest of us."

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by: Matthew Koehler @ Wed Jan 30, 2008 at 14:35:08 PM UTC

Missoulian got it right this time (0.00 / 0)

The Missoulian seems to be more informed today than just a few years ago in 2005.  Although they may have been correct that the District of Columbia gets more consideration from Congress than some places, Congressional "consideration" is usually what we call meddling in local DC decision-making.

Congressional "consideration" of DC is rarely in DC's local interest.  More often than not, "consideration" is a way for elected officials from states with rights--who do not reside or vote here--to put on a show for their constituents back home, and DC gets left holding the bag.  You can't imagine how many programs get dumpted on DC so it can be "the example for the nation."  What a mess.

The District of Columbia government is responsible for nearly everything a state does, as well as all city and county responsibilities all in one.  (It's a city-state.) The mayor performs the duties of a governor, the council the duties of a legislature.  In all federal legislation, the District is "treated as a state."  So DC receives payments from the feds (from money collected in FEDERAL taxes) for federal programs under the guidelines states do.  However, it is not treated as a state when it comes to political rights.

The fact that the District is under the exclusive legislative authority of Congress means:

* DC does not have budgetary autonomy.  DC's LOCAL (state) budget of some $7 billion collected 95% from taxpayers (larger than 14 states) and submitted by the executive (mayor) for approved after in-depth hearings of the legislative (Council) must go before Congreessional subcommittees and the full House and Senate for more approval.  Each time that happens, they add riders to the budget for their own purposes--riders we strongly oppose.  This forces local officials to continually look over their shoulder to appease Congress and fear retailation for standing up for what locals want.

* DC does not have legislative or judicial autonomy.  Congress can override all laws of our legislative system.  Our court system was taken over by the feds in the 1990s (and they pay for it) in exchange for assuming a pension liability that the feds had dumped on DC when it granted DC home rule.  DC was trapped at the time and surrendered more rights for a bailout.  It was thought to be the best DC could do under the circumstance--not that there was really a choice.  Further, the President of the U.S. appoints our District Attorney and local judges.

DC obviously benefits from the federal presence and likes being the national capital.  However, it's economy is stunted by Congressional decisions.  There is a structural imbalance because the feds exampt themselves, all foreign embassies, non-profits, etc. from taxes.  In most places, the feds offer a Payment in Lieu of Taxes to compensate something for the exemption--but not in DC.  Also, the feds exampt commuters (70% of our workforce is located in suburbs in MD and VA) from paying even 1-5% wage taxes and that money goes directly to Annapolis and Richmond for redistribution in VA and MD.  The 24 voting reps from those states keep this couple billion dollar win intact--believe me.

And now we come to the issue of federal voting rights.  DC won the right to vote for President under the 23rd Constitutional amendment in 1961.  (The vote is limited to the number of electors of the smallest state, regardless of DC's population.)  The amendment was passed as a civil rights bill because the majority of residents were (are) black and segregationists thought they could slow down federal civil rights legislation by supporting DC presidential voting rights.  There's always a twist... that said, DC is thrilled to be able to participate in Presidential elections.  (If there is an impeachment, forget it--DC has no say because that happens in Congress.)

The record shows that most Dems and Repubs agree that DC residents should have Congressional voting rights--there is general agreement on principle.  (Bush is an exception.)  But every time we have proposed locally acceptable solutions (amendment, statehood), we have been shot down.

Republicans tend to prefer merging DC into MD because that is a liberal state--no more Dems in Congress.  DC has operated on its own for over 200 years and doesn't feel like MD--so it is largely uninterested in that approach.  MD for the most part is also uninterested in having another urban area in its state--especially Eastern Shore, Baltimore, and the West of the State.  The MD suburbs outside DC are already growing in influence in MD, and having 600,000 more residents would accelerate the process.

Locally, there is a lot of support for statehood--New Columbia--because it solves the problems all at once and is equal.  But it's a hard sell, especially for large western and rural areas.

DC would also support an equal constitutional rights amendment--treat DC residents as equal to other residents living in states.  Passing an amendment is hard and in the current political environment where the balance of power is so close, nobody is going there fast.  Political elites tend to NOT get upset much about this issue--they generally accept DC's disenfranchisement as unfortunate--but acceptable and of lesser importance than other issues.

The current bill in Congress would grant DC a vote in the House only by simple legislation.  There is some question about the Constitutionality of granting voting rights by legislation, but that issue would be resolved by the Supreme Court if Congress would just do it.  It is sad that even with the compromises accepted in this bill, most Republicans aren't supporting it because--simply put--they do not want representation for people who vote Democrat.  That is the bottom line.

It is sad that the best the nation can even TRY to offer the people who are permanent citizens of the national capital is far less than equal and gets nowhere near the Senate--where states can fend off intrusion best.  

One day, we hope, the nation will take a principled stand and make DC permanent citizens full and equal to citizens living in states.  Austrailia, Brazil, and India--with systems like ours--did it, so maybe one day our nation will become one of the countries in the world in which the citizens living in the nation's capital are enfranchised and equal.  We can always dream.

There are a lot of resources on DC Vote's website:

http://www.dcvote.org/trellis/...

A full history of efforts to retrocede, with a lot of background on the overall issue, is here:

http://www.dcvote.org/trellis/...

THANK you for supporting DC - in any way.

And way to go Missoulian!

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by: DCcolonyman @ Wed Jan 30, 2008 at 17:35:24 PM UTC