D.C. residents deserve vote

By The Standard Staff - 02/06/2008

The tea bag says it all: End taxation without representation. Yet, more than 200 years after the Boston Tea Party protest, nearly 600,000 American citizens remain locked in a similar bind.

The residents of Washington, D.C., pay federal income taxes, serve on federal juries, register for selective service — yet they don’t have a voice in Congress.

They do elect a representative, a seat now filled by Eleanor Holmes Norton, but she is prohibited from voting on the final passage of legislation, effectively denying these tax-paying American citizens their rightful representation in Washington.

Which brings us back to the tea bag: It’s the perfect freebie for the DC Vote folks to hand out to any and all who will listen to their message. Two staffers from the nonprofit met with The Standard’s editorial board last week, and we all walked away with a teabag and a newfound understanding of the issue.

We learned that the federal government already treats the District of Columbia as a state in more than 500 ways, and that the United States is the only democratic country in the world that denies its capital district citizens a vote in the national legislature.

We learned that prominent legal scholars believe Congress has full authority under the District Clause of the U.S. Constitution to grant this voting right. Some opponents contend a constitutional amendment is needed, but that’s simply not so, according to DC Vote communications director Kevin Kiger. “Congress has exclusive legislative authority over D.C.,” he said.

The group is now kicking off a national public awareness campaign because for the first time in decades, this fundamental right to representation has a chance to become law.

Last April, the U.S. House passed the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2007 by a margin of 241 to 177. The legislation would add two new permanent members to the House — one to represent D.C. residents and another to represent the growing population in Utah, but that seat could move to another state following the next Congressional reapportionment after the 2010 Census.

But when the Senate took up its companion bill last September, it didn’t even make it to the floor for debate. The vote was 57-42 in favor of consideration, which was three votes shy of the 60 yes-votes needed.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., was among those who voted against it. According to a Washington Post article published Sept. 19, “Baucus said in a written statement that he opposed the bill because Montana has only one House vote. ‘If we were to expand the House, Montana’s voice would become less influential,’ he said.” Kiger agreed that yes, Montana’s vote would be diluted, but by a minimal amount. Montana would move from being one vote among 435 to one among 437. And rarely do one or two votes make or break a bill, he pointed out.

He also pointed out the faulty logic behind that reasoning. Granting women and blacks the right to vote diluted existing votes; adding states diluted votes; lowering the voting age to 18 diluted votes. That’s not the issue here. The issue is that nearly 600,000 American citizens have no voting representation in Congress. At the same time the U.S. is striving to export democracy, we’re not fully practicing it at home.

Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., voted for the bill, Kiger said, but Rep. Denny Rehberg, R-Mont., voted against it.

This should not be a partisan issue. It’s about granting citizens their basic right to representation. And as we Montana citizens know, having a voting representative in Congress is no guarantee of getting what we want from Washington, but at least it gives us a voice, and someone in power to contact to when we feel strongly about an issue.

As U.S. citizens, D.C. residents deserve that same right. Kiger said there may be another effort to introduce the Senate bill before the summer recess. Please join us in urging Baucus to vote yes on this the second time around.