The District of Columbia is home to about 600,000 people, which is more than the entire state of Wyoming. According to their respective Wikipedia entries, DC has 599,657 people living in 68.3 square miles. There would be more people had the 1846 retrocession of Alexandria not happened. In contrast, 544,270 people live in Wyoming's 97,818 square miles.
Under the constitution, Wyoming gets two Senators and one Representative in Congress. The District of Columbia, on the other hand, gets only one non-voting delegate.
That might finally change after more than a year delay.
This was breaking news a few hours ago from the Washington Post, which certainly has an interest in this issue:
D.C. voting rights bill to be revived in Congress
Congressional leaders intend to revive a D.C. voting rights bill on the House floor as early as next week, despite opposition from city leaders to an amendment that would strip most of the District's gun-control laws.
The final details of the bill were still being worked out Wednesday, but House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said he expects the legislation to clear the House and to include some version of the pro-gun language that has bogged down the measure since last year.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the city's non-voting House member, said she is still negotiating to try to weaken the gun amendment, but that she is unwilling to sacrifice the opportunity to win a long-sought voting seat for the District by insisting on a stand-alone bill.
It is really infuriating that the pact with the devil is that voting rights is linked to allowing more guns in the District. In order to get a voting member in Congress, the district has to accept a deal with Republicans who don't even live in the District full time to put more guns on the streets. Thanks so much.
Still, Mayor Adrian Fenty said last year that the District should reluctantly make that deal.
Fenty Says Bite the Bullet on Vote Bill
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty said he believes that District residents support pushing a voting rights bill through Congress even if it means the city's gun control laws would be weakened by an amendment being offered by gun rights supporters.
In an interview with The Washington Post this week, Fenty (D) said that it would be a "tough call" to accept an amendment to the bill and that he hopes the city "won't have to make that choice."
And I did run "Washington DC murder rate" through the Google machine. DC did see a drop in its violent crime rate in the first half of 2009, but cities across the nation saw similar declines. The right wing blogs predictably linked more guns to less crime (if everyone could be armed, no one will try to rob anyone else). One site even linked the drop in violent crimes to a prayer vigil on the National Mall.
Obviously, I don't think these causal factors have anything to do with the effects. For one thing, if everyone is armed, the chance of a misunderstanding escalating to murder increases not decreases. It's irrational to think that more potential for violence will reduce actual violence in the long run.
For another thing, the DC decline seems to have been part of a larger pattern, so there could be other factors involved.
Finally, one doesn't need to be an atheist to conclude that a prayer vigil had no effect on crime rates. It's not like God decided that early 2009 was going to be safer in the Nation's Capitol. "God did it" is never a valid causal argument anyway.
The other caveat of the voting rights bill is that the House of Representatives would grow by not one, but two members. DC is heavily Democratic. It broke 93-7 percent in favor of Barack Obama. Most elections in the district are settled in the Democratic primaries. The other seat would temporarily go to heavily Republican Utah, which narrowly missed out on getting another seat in the House. Chances are that the Democrat and Republican voting members would in effect cancel each other out. Following the 2010 census, that seat could end up elsewhere.
Is a single House vote going to make much difference? Probably not. However, if all of the delegates (DC, Guam, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Virgin Islands, and Northern Marianas Islands) had voting rights, the health insurance reform bill in the House would have passed with a greater margin and likely without the need to negotiate with Bart Stupak. All of the delegates are Democrats or caucus with the Democrats.
In addition, it would be nice to have a couple of DC Senators too, but politics being what it is, the District will probably not get them anytime soon. Naturally, two DC Senators would probably both be Democrats and it would be nearly impossible to push that through the Senate. On the other hand, a voting Representative makes future arguments for Senate representation much stronger.
Another option for the district is retrocession to Maryland or Virginia with only the Mall area remaining outside of a state. Maryland would make more sense since the district is all north of the Potomac River. However, I come down on the side of independence for the District.
The other option, offered by Texan Louie Gohmert, is to exempt DC residents from paying the income tax and leave the citizens unrepresentative.
Exempt DC Residents from Federal Taxation
Congressional liberals are once again trying to pass legislation to give Washington, D.C. a voting representative in the House. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton’s D.C. Voting Rights Act of 2009 is a bad bill, which would extinguish the Constitutional difference between the District of Columbia and the 50 states.
In a recent hearing on the bill, George Washington Law School professor Jonathan Turley has said that the District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act is the "the most premeditatedly unconstitutional act by Congress in decades."
~snip
That is why I have filed a bill -- H.R. 1014 -- to end the payment of federal income tax for those who are residents of Washington, D.C. If you think that seems farfetched, take a look at what we have done for other U.S. areas where, like D.C., a delegate is elected rather than a Representative:
Thanks, Louie, but we will pay our taxes like every other American. We just want a say in the government. I assume to Republicans DC residents still count as either Real Americans or Democrats. Additionally, the population of the city would swell to unlivable as Maryland and Virginia residents flee to the city as an income tax dodge.
Anyway, in its infinite laziness, the Post did not bother to cite a bill number in question, but there are three floating around Congressional Committees right now. They are HR 157, HR 665 and S 160. HR 157 is the one sponsored by Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (DC-AL) and presumably the one that Majority Leader Steny Hoyer wants to call up.
Your call to action is to call or e-mail your Senators and Representatives and tell them to give the residents of the nation's capitol a voice in Congress and to water down the guns language. Do this on behalf of DC residents who don't have a Senator or voting Representative in Congress. (The delegates can vote in committees.)
Looking to November, the Democrats can take credit for finally giving 600,000 folks -- including a lot of African American and Latino folks -- a voice in their government. Republicans get to decide between continuing to deny a voice to a lot of folks -- including a lot of African American and Latino folks -- or putting a lot more guns on the streets of the Nation's Capitol.
If you need a fringe benefit, once DC gets the voting rights that it deserves, Stephen Colbert will meet his nemesis, Del. Norton, and get a key to the city. Watch the video here.
Full disclosures: I am a resident of the District of Columbia. I have also done some uncompensated consultations for Doug Sloan, who is mounting a primary challenge against Del. Norton.