Dispatches from Left Field: On Enfranshisement

TNG contributor and District of Columbia resident Matt' submitted this piece.

Last week, the Senate voted on the DC House Voting Rights Act of 2009, approving it with a filibuster-proof 61 votes. The House is expected to follow suit shortly on their version. Voting rights for the District is closer than it has ever been. This legislation will give the almost 600,000 residents of the Federal City voting representation in the United States House of Representatives. As a resident of the District, I find this prospect exciting and long overdue.

The Founding Fathers never intended for the creation of the District of Columbia to cause American citizens to be deprived of their "inalienable rights." They envisioned the District as an area carved out of other states (so as to be free of their influence) which would be large enough to provide for the defense of the federal government. I don't think the Founders predicted that a permanent population would reside in Washington. Nonetheless, the District has grown to a cosmopolitan metropolis, home to hundreds of thousands of citizens. Their disenfranchisement is a civil rights issue and is a blemish on our great republic.

There are two related issues at stake. The primary issue is, of course, the lack of full representation in all three branches of the federal government. But another gap in the rights of citizens of the District is the lack of home rule. While both issues are pressing, right now Congress seems intent on solving only one - and only part of that one to boot.

A Vote in the House
The values upon which this country is based transcend politics. These principles, according to the Founding Fathers, transcended all time and culture and no outside entity has the right or ability to remove them. But politics has often kept the vote far from the reach of Washingtonians.

In the Senate's version of the DC Voting Rights Bill, Republicans attached a provision which would strip DC of its ability to regulate guns. The conference committee's compromise might eliminate this amendment, but the fact that some legislator thought it appropriate to make a civil rights issue into a political issue is offensive to me.

The gun issue is merely an indicator of a larger agenda. The Republicans are often found opposing DC enfranchisement, ostensibly on the grounds that it's not a state. The real issue, however, is that any representatives or senators from the District will be Democratic for the foreseeable future. The DC Voting Rights Bill attempts to balance this issue by granting ultra-conservative Utah an extra seat in the House. However, any American citizen who is truly a patriot should unconditionally support DC voting rights. There is nothing more American than the power to shape one's government through the vote.

While it is true that residents of the District of Columbia have been able to vote for President since the election of 1964, they still have no voting Representatives or Senators. The nearly 600,000 residents of Washington cannot write their Senator, cannot visit their Representative, cannot be given the full rights guaranteed under the United States Constitution, even though they many are natural born citizens. And in the system of checks and balances set forth by the Framers, the lack of a vote in any of the branches is the lack of a vote in all of the branches.

Until the District has representation in both houses, the work of the Framers is not yet done. A voting Representative in the House is a step in the right direction but it is not the end of the journey. The Senate, for instance, confirms executive appointments and signs treaties. The residents of the District have no say in this process now and won't even under the proposed DC Voting Rights Act. A letter to the editor in today's Washington Post wondered if getting half a loaf now might keep us from ever getting the rest of the loaf. I wonder about that too.

We are the only republic in the world that does not allow citizens of its capital the rights given to all other citizens. This egregious injustice must be righted. And any attempt to block or compromise the granting of this sacred right with amendments is blasphemous to the very foundations of this nation.

Last month, a Republican Congressman from Texas, Louie Gohmert, announced that he was a convert. He had previously opposed granting voting rights to the District, but now he was for it. However he thinks that giving DC a Representative is unconstitutional because it is not a state. As a stopgap, he has proposed exempting District residents from the federal income tax. Our license plates, it seems, have gotten to him. But it seems something was lost in translation. Because while the cry of both colonists and Washingtonians was "no taxation without representation," what was (and is) really meant was "let us govern ourselves." Mr. Gohmert does not understand that while taxation without representation runs afoul of the founding principles of America, so does legislation without representation.

Local Government
The Founders gave Congress sole jurisdiction over the affairs of the District when they wrote the Constitution. This clause creates a truly unjust situation for the citizens of the District. Even though citizens of the District vote for a Mayor and Council, Congress still has to approve all legislation. They even have the power to remove (as in abolish the offices of) the Mayor and Council without asking the voters of the District.

No other jurisdiction in the country is forced to pass the federal bar for every piece of local legislation. From budget bills to the most inconsequential ordinances, every action taken by the District Council is subject to review and revision. Today, conservatives are especially concerned about the gun issue. While this time they attached it as an amendment to a voting rights bill, they often try even more dastardly things.

Nothing is more of an affront to local government than having legislation written for it. In every other city in the nation, no matter how big or small, city councils decide through the democratic process what is best for citizens. But in Washington, legislators, none of whom represent the District, decide what is best. They are completely unaccountable for their actions. Their constituents are often hundreds or thousands of miles away and hold different values than we here in Washington. So sometimes, all too frequently, it seems, politicos try and score points at the expense of District residents.

Last summer, Mark Souder, a Republican Congressman from Indiana, tried to write the District's gun laws on behalf of the District. The 580,000 residents of Washington would have no say in how this legislation was crafted, but the citizens of the other states would. But the needs of Indiana and California and Alaska are far different than our needs. Our voice, it seems, does not matter. Once again, legislators here in Washington have decided to play politics with our rights. The gun amendment to the DC Voting Rights Act of 2009 will strip DC's ability to legislate gun control. No other state or jurisdiction in the United States must face such federal interference.

This proposed amendment, along with other Congressional overrides of the local government of the District smacks of the tyranny inherent in the reviled Massachusetts Government Act. This government, one made of the People, by the People, and for the People, is supposed to stand for something. It is supposed to be a shining city on a hill, a beacon of hope in a world without freedom. But here, in the very shadow of the Capitol's Dome, that light is dimmed. And the lack of home-rule makes it still darker here.

In 1963, 10 years before the city of Washington would receive a locally elected mayor and council, President John F. Kennedy travelled to an island of democracy in Eastern Europe. There, standing in front of Rathaus Schöneberg, standing in the shadow of the Wall, he said that the proudest boast in a world of freedom is "Ich bin ein Berliner." This phrase, said Kennedy, is the boast of "all free men, wherever they may live."

Oh, how I long to say that phrase.

Berlin was an island of freedom in a sea of totalitarianism. Washington is surrounded by the lapping waves of freedom, and while they haven't built a wall to keep us in, they haven't given us the vote either.

But we're closer than ever. I hope that the good men in Washington will do what is right. Giving us a Representative is yet one more step along the path to Freedom. But until we also have the right to chart our own course, until we have the right to write our own laws, until we have the right to full representation in the government we help to uphold, we will not be able to add the light of our candles to the beacon of Freedom.

The picture at top was taken by the author.