Captain's Quarters -

Just a bunch of clowns!

NONE OF THEM have enough votes to really pass an agenda; they "oink" a lot. And, they're there ONLY for the pork. And, for what passes as "fame."

Besides, their real goals are to go for the pork.

These critters have always stunk. Didn't Lincoln have to throw some of them in jail?

It's like expecting a whore house to improve, because a painting contractor's truck shows up in front. And, parks. (See? Painters might be inside? Or? Maybe, the painters are naked?) You just can't tell.

So if they are really concerned about voting rights, cut the District off at M Street and give the rest back to Maryland. I think Congress can do that; Arlington VA used to be in DC.

Ed, does this mean that DC residents can count on your support for a Constitutional Amendment to provide for full representation in Congress? Or can we at least count on your support of legislation to exempt DC residents from federal income taxes as is the case with other U.S. territories? If you can’t support either of these options, what ideas do you have to deal with this inherently unequal treatment of U.S. Citizens?

HOGWASH to the above rationale! (I'll ignore the comments as tangental). This is a clear case of taxation without representation. Remember that cause? The District was not intended to be a Congressional colony. Although the Congress has frequently ignored the rights of District citizens so they can enact some unilateral decree upon them. Your argument of a zone free of interference is opinion only and luidcrious. The framers never meant for some idealistic utopia to be established along the Potomac, they just wanted a separate legal entity from a state to serve as the Nation's Capitol and seat of government so that a state or states could not hold the government hostage. As to the District residents supporting the Congress, that smacks of a plantation mentaility which apparently still exist amongst the not-so illustrious
members of Congress? The citizens Yes citizens of the District do NOT elect Congress persons so why should Congress persons control and run the District.

Native Washingtonian

Robert said:

"Or can we at least count on your support of legislation to exempt DC residents from federal income taxes as is the case with other U.S. territories?"

DC isn't really comparable to American Samoa or Guam, as both of those US Territories are thousands of miles out at sea. DC is more comparable to a state, especially in location. And DC has a much greater population to tax, 10 times the population of American Samoa.

I don't know about you, but I don't favor granting tax-exempt status to DC residents. After all, many politicians live there!

Gotta agree with Lee Whaler and Robert

Why do libs have all the fun tinkering with the rules of government? I'd like to revisit the concept of taxation without representation.

The Founding Fathers famously declared taxation without representation is tyranny. Now, if one man is taxed at an exorbitant rate and gets one vote, and another man pays little or no tax and gets one vote, this too is injustice.

I propose that individual votes should be weighted by the amount the voter pays in taxes. Those who accept the least responsibility for funding our government deserve the least say in it.

Representation without taxation is anarchy! Down with the slackers!

If they want representation in Congress there is a simple solution.

Move.

Well, the solution is to move all housing and residents out of Washington DC, and just have the Nation's capital being used by the government and lobbyists, and commercial buildings. No people living there ergo no taxation without representation. They could vote in Md, De or Virginia, but just commute in. Problem solved.

Why do the vast majority of federal workers who work in the District live in Virginia and Maryland. The obvious answer is that there are just so darn many of them. But a lot of the younger federal workers coming to DC for the first time spend a very short time as residents in the District. They most often head across the Potomac or into Maryland. Most of the low wage blue collar federal employees, however, come from and reside in the District. They cannot afford to leave or simply chose not to leave.

The District has a history of poor services, lines similar to the worst DMV for every District office that deals with licensing and other people needs. Graft and corruption at all levels of city government. The police department is a sometimes on sometimes off sort of thing. Crime? Still high, very high, by most community standards. Schools? Have kids? Don't send them to DC schools, plain and simple, even though the District has the highest or one of the highest expenditures per pupil of all the U.S. school districts. Want to hire non-union employees? Try it. For the most part The Peoples Republic of the District of Columbia is alive and well.

My view? Take the Federal area downtown centering on the Mall and declare that a Federal District, zone it for no residential areas at all. Then, ask Maryland if they want the rest back...seems Steny Hoyer would be the one leading the charge on this, and failing this, let the rest of the District declare itself a State...and then immediately cut off all ongoing federal funding for everything, and have the states come up with real budgets, real tax schedules and have the new District 100% responsible for itself. And then sit back and watch and wait...and you will very soon see a major Third World city wrapped around the Federal District and the Mall.

But, they then can proudly have two Senators, and one Representative in Congress and see what that will get them when they have to compete with the rest of the 50 States for funding and programs.

"The framers never meant for some idealistic utopia to be established along the Potomac, they just wanted a separate legal entity from a state to serve as the Nation's Capitol and seat of government so that a state or states could not hold the government hostage."

But without the vote. They couldn't vote for President until 1961. That was their deliberate intention.

"As to the District residents supporting the Congress, that smacks of a plantation mentaility which apparently still exist amongst the not-so illustrious members of Congress?"

Hardly. Reflect that when Abe Lincoln turned DC into a citadel, it was full of American citizens with less Congressional representation (0/3) than the slaves across the river in Maryland (2/3). So it is not a plantation, because the founders made Constitutional provision for the slaves in districting rules.

"The citizens Yes citizens of the District do NOT elect Congress persons so why should Congress persons control and run the District."
"If you can’t support either of these options, what ideas do you have to deal with this inherently unequal treatment of U.S. Citizens?"

Mikey NTH beat me to it. Fine, eminent domain this anachronism into oblivion. Buy up the whole District of Columbia, evict all residents, convert into the world's biggest open block mall/hotel district. Since Hsu won't be buying the Mandalay Bay anymore, Democrats have got to have SOMEWHERE to drink $30 cocktails.

and eaglewings beat me to it as well.

you could call that "traction"...

Mahon hit it right on the head. If it such an egregious abuse to the people of DC let them have a refernedum and vote themselves back to being part of MD, from whence they came. Voila! 2 Senators and a Congressman.

But alas, that is not what this is about. Just another excuse for the greivance crowd to get together and lament how Republicans are racists and don't want blacks to have the franchise, equal opportunity, health care, etc.

And Robert, I wil go on the record and say I will not support a constitutional amendement to give DC an elector. I will take the considered opinions of Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, et al over Harry, Nancy and whatever other moonbats you care to use as your guiding lights on this topic.

But I will go on the record and also say that I will support that DC residents not paying income tax (that not being mentioned in the Constitution-cuz income tax was un-Constitutional then). Along with that, of course, will be that they will not receive any of federal largesse also. No aid for public schools, social service, for their police dept, roads, get the drift? Cuts both ways. Something tells me that the local government won't take that trade.

OH, GOD, NO!!!! As a Maryland resident, the idea of taking back any part of Washington, DC, is BAD!!! What the heck are you people trying to do to us? Sheesh, isn't Baltimore and her crime punishment enough?

DC getting a vote is more akin to Fort Benning getting a vote, than Guam or Puerto Rico. Territorial residents don'r pay federal tax. The real "fix" for this is retrocession to Maryland or a constitutional amendment. FWIW, aside from a few gadflies, it's not a burning issue here. They had a rally in the spring and hardly anyone showed up. People want competent, honest city government and lower taxes. As far as "taxation without representation" I'll add that "taxation with representation" (as in the taxes levied by our illustrious DC Council) is no great shakes either!

Cap Ed writes: The Democrats, who hope to win an edge in the House by adding a voting DC representative, know they can never get such an amendment passed and has opted for an unconstitutional rule change.
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EXCEPT for the fact that the bill specifically provided for an extra house member from Utah which is as red a state as you can imagine so that the net gain for Dems would be ZERO other than actually allowing people in DC to vote.

Simple solution, give most of the land back to the bordering states. Rezone the remainder for office space only, no housing period. I recommend this in any case since city government of the district has been a complete disaster.

If you want to whine about needing a voting congress critter then move a couple miles to an appropriate area. I, for one, don't agree that DC residents have the right to have "another" elected buffoon living off our tax dollars. No thank you we have enough idiots there now without some local clown being added.

As far as the genteel person, in the earlier post, bringing up the platation comparision, that's nonsense. The term "service" was meant in the form that the majority were envisioned to be government workers, not serfs or slaves. Bringing up such a comparison is simply trying to play the obligatory race card.

Here's my cunning solution: turn DC into a national park and move the capital to Las Vegas.

Hell, if we're lucky, whatever legislation is enacted in Vegas...will stay in Vegas.

JD, that's what Mahon proposed. And there's precident, orginally DC was a square, five miles on a side, mostly from Maryland, but part from Virginia. The Virginian part was returned to Virgina in 1847.

Do the same with all of the residential part of the District, problem solved.

Of course, that's not what the activists are really after.

It's not a burning issue... but it is rather sad. I agree with the above posters who point out that what's described in the Constitution is not what the District of Columbia is; no one, I would think intended any sort of notion of an unrepresented collection of our own population with no say and no vote in the general conduct of national government.

Even odder to me is the partisn nature of this; apparently the reason the people of the District don't deserve representation is because they'd vote for Democrats. I'm happy to say now, if providing a mechanism for the District to get Congressional representation led to Republicans leading them, I'd be for that, too.

It's appalling that we even need to have this argument, or that this vote is so feared we have to keep putting it off (also, 57 votes is hardly so vast as to say "could not even." They came pretty damn close). I'd even be willing, as a former Marylander to agree that redrawing things and giving sections back to Maryland makes sense... only I'd suggest that people really examine the maps of Federal buildings, embassies and residential - returning block after block to Maryland wiyuld likely be unbelievably complex - which, I suspect has more to do with why "official" Maryland is so not arguing for it - they don't want Congressional interference on the level that DC has, I'm sure.

I agree, this problem has just been allowed to grow and grow until the solution to it has a bearing on all sorts of things no one could have anticipated. But to call the status quo appropriate or acceptable also seems more willful than sensible. When the very thing we fought for freedom over - taxation without representation - is allowed to continue on our watch, I find it nothing short of embarrassing.

What they want is to get their foot in the door. Once they get a house vote for DC. .how long before they ask for a senate vote too? Then how much longer before they start asking for seats for all sorts of territories - left leaning ones, naturally.

And the problem with "Just adding one to utah" is that Utah's population might go up or down proportionally - and its representation could shift right back with the next election - in other words, the seat woudl disappear in the wash - DC will never have less than one seat(If given one) and that seat never has any chance of being anything but a democrat.

No, thank you.

DC residents can vote themselves part of a different state if they want the voting rights. Noone is forcing them to live there.

And DC (the "Federal City" in the Constitution) is actually declining in population. The issue was more relevant (because more people lived there) when they gave DC electoral votes in 1961.

I say give it back to Maryland.

When you have several hundred leaders, all of them have a ticket not to do anything. The Framers really made a big mistake by putting a committee of lawmakers into the executive position in DC.

That said, as the Captain points out, a Constitutional amendment would be needed to give DC separate federal representation from the representation it now supposedly has from every member of Congress.

Personally, the constitutional fix that makes the most sense is to make everyone but the officers of the Government into citizens of Maryland for purposes of voting for federal officers. After all, DC is built upon land ceded by the State of Maryland to house the federal government.

That won't take care of the governance issues associated with the DC government, but the voters do vote for those officers. They re-elected Marion Berry, and they got what they deserved as a result.

Any other solution gives the citizens of DC a representative power all out of proportion to their numbers. The last time we tried to pass a Constitutional amendment giving them that power (in 1978), only sixteen states ratified it before the time limit on the legislation expired. I doubt they'd have much better luck this time around.

RYan is right, this is simply a foot in the door to more representation for liberal areas. Maybe some enterprising Republican Rep or Sen needs to get out in front of this and introduce legislation to return the residential area of DC to Maryland, and head off the whole issue.

Unclesmrgol made the point---these people re-elected Marion "crackhead" Barry as mayor. No votes---we need to be protected from these people not give them more power. What's next on the agenda --- give illegals the right to vote!!!

I for one am fully willing to go the other way on this issue. I will happily return my representation in congress for the right to not be taxed. No representation with No taxation! Alas, it is not to be so. Failing this, I agree that a rezoning or the "District" is the way to go. When military dependents live on a military base, they don't give up thier voting rights or state residency. Simply give the DC "residents" residency in thier state of choice. Of course they would also have to pay state income taxes for those states, and meet those states requirements for public assistance programs.....

My view is just the opposite. Let's expand the non-voting privledges to those those people choose who participate in government. That was the reason why DC was created. It allowed a place, not under state control, where the federal business could take place.

Why should we allow people receiving benefits the ability to raise their own income by voting a certain way. This is an invitation for the corruption of Congress.

The constitution was set up so that most of the activities of many of today's Cabinet level departments were handled by private citizens or individual states. By eliminating DC from state control it eliminated those providing services in the Federal government from sending funds their own way through whatever state they represented.

"if they are really concerned about voting rights, cut the District off at M Street and give the rest back to Maryland. I think Congress can do that; Arlington VA used to be in DC."

Exactly right.

Arlington used to be part of Alexandria. After the feds ceded Arlington back to Virginia was when it became known as Arlington.

This is the wrong battle. DC needs to convince Maryland to take it back, where it belongs. Since both entities are stocked rife full of Democrats, this should be easy, right?