"When in the course of human events..."
Those are just words to hundreds of thousands of American citizens, who still don't have the rights that the founders of this country fought and died for.
As I write this, I and 590,000 of your fellow American citizens - citizens who pay their taxes, whose children can be drafted for war, who are just as subject to all Federal laws and regulations as any other American citizen - are being denied our basic civil rights.
We are disenfranchised - we are allowed no representation in the body that makes our laws and taxes our income, and the laws our city's elected representatives make are subject to the veto of a Congressional committee that is completely unaccountable to us. We have one representative in the House - the solid progressive Eleanor Holmes Norton - but she is not allowed to vote. We have no representation of any kind in the Senate.
The worst thing about being denied civil rights - being disenfranchised - is that we are powerless to change our situation. The only people who can change our situation are Congress and the state legislatures through a Constitutional amendment - and we are not represented in those bodies.
If any other group of 590,000 American citizens - over half of whom are African-American - were being denied a basic civil right, the noise of those demanding justice would be deafening. Yet here, at the very center of our nation's power, are over half a million citizens of this country who are being forced by law to accept a status as true second-class citizens - and the most the Democratic Party can offer is a few words in the platform and a weak-tea bill that won't pass Constitutional muster. Justice demands that we be given full civil rights - two Senators, at least one full voting representative, and home rule on an equal level with any other state.
Therefore, it is the responsibility of all progressives - all Americans, in fact - to stand up and say "no more." If you are reading this diary, it is your responsibility to make the civil rights of DC residents a priority.
Justice demands that the residents of the District of Columbia be given one of two things:
(a) A Constitutional amendment acknowledging and granting DC citizens' right to full and equal representation in Congress - two Senators and as many Representatives as are appropriate; or
(b) A bill, passed through Congress and signed by the President, exempting DC residents from all federal obligations - including the taxation of our income, eligibility for the draft, and subjection to any and all federal laws. If we aren't going to get representation in government, it's wrong that we are subject to its dictates.
But the efforts of DC residents alone can't win our civil rights. We have absolutely no say in the only two bodies that could grant us our civil rights - Congress and the state legislatures. We need Americans from the 50 enfranchised states to stand up for us. Thus, I'm asking you to do five things on behalf of DC residents' civil rights.
- Whenever you write a health care diary or any other diary asking people to call their representative or Senator, mention the denial of our civil rights. Ask your readers to mention in their call that 590,000 of their fellow-citizens have no voting representative or Senator to call. If this issue isn't on the radar of Congress, it's never going to change.
- Make clear to your member of Congress or Senator that your support for them is dependent on their stance - and their willingness to expend political capital - on this issue of basic civil rights. And mean it. If progressives in the 50 enfranchised states aren't willing to stand up for us on this, it's never going to change.
- As a Constitutional amendment requires the assent of state legislatures, it's also incumbent on progressives in the 50 enfranchised states to make clear to the people who represent you on the state level that their support for full civil rights for DC residents is non-negotiable.
- Work within your local Democratic Party infrastructure to demand civil rights for DC citizens - including passing resolutions, making endorsements and funding dependent on holding the right position, and holding elected officials accountable for using their political capital for the cause of civil rights.
- Whenever a friend or colleague mentions Congress, let them know that 590,000 of their fellow citizens are still being denied basic civil rights, and they won't be given civil rights until people in the 50 enfranchised states demand it. Whenever you see a comment on DailyKos complaining about his or her representatives in Congress, please remind the commenter that 590,000 of his or her fellow citizens don't have representation in Congress.
Only if progressives in the 50 states that do have representation in government demand it, will the 590,000 citizens of the District of Columbia have our basic civil right to representation and home rule recognized. Please help us by doing those five things. Justice demands that all Americans stand up whenever the civil rights of any of their fellow citizens are denied.