District of Columbia voting rights

Encyclopedia : D : DI : DIS : District of Columbia voting rights

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Voting rights in the District of Columbia differ from those of United States citizens in other parts of the country. In particular, citizens of the District of Columbia (i.e., the city of Washington, D.C.) have only limited representation in the United States Congress. Formerly, District residents had no participation in the federal government at all, but they have participated in presidential elections since passage of the 23rd Amendment in 1961 (in practice, since the election of 1964). Citizens of Washington are represented in the House of Representatives by a non-voting delegate who may vote in committee and participates in debate but cannot vote on the House floor. D.C. does not have any representation whatsoever in the United States Senate (see also Shadow Senator).

A separate yet related controversy regards the lack of an intrinsic right for D.C. residents to govern their local affairs. For more on this, see District of Columbia home rule.

Political and Racial Complications

African-Americans make up a very high percentage (60%) of the D.C. population, compared to the national average, and critics charge that opposition to D.C. voting rights is largely based on racism. Whether or not that is true, it is clear that the granting of voting rights would result in a clear benefit to Democrats and a corresponding disadvantage to Republicans; for example, 89% of D.C. voters supported the Democrat John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election, a higher percentage than any state mustered for either candidate. Any voting representatives sent to Congress by a future D.C. with voting rights could similarly be expected to be Democrats.

\"Taxation Without Representation\"

While the District's official motto is Justitia omnibus ("Justice to All"), the words "Taxation Without Representation", echoing the Revolutionary slogan, "Taxation without Representation is Tyranny!", were added to D.C. license plates in 2000, and there was briefly a movement to add the words "No Taxation Without Representation" to the D.C. flag. Advocates who have supported these changes have said that they are intended as a protest and to raise awareness in the rest of the country. These measures in particular were chosen because the D.C. flag is one of the few things under direct local control without requiring approval from Congress.

Comparisons

The political status of Washington, D.C. is comparable to that of U.S. territories in times past. With the exception of the Eastern Seaboard and Texas, all parts of current U.S. states were at one time or another part of a territory, which had a non-voting delegate to the House and no representation in the Senate. Citizens of U.S. territories were not eligible to vote for President. Several other political entities currently administered by the United States (including Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands) are currently identical to D.C. in having only a non-voting delegate to the House. However, the current examples are different from the territories of the past in that they are not being prepared for admission as U.S. states. The other current examples are also different from D.C. in that Washington has been an integral part of the U.S. for 200 years and still lacks representation in Congress.

Citizens of Washington, D.C. are not unique in having diminished representation in their federal legislature, although they are unique in having no voting representation at all. Other nations that have built capital cities from scratch, including Australia and Nigeria, have diminished representation for a federal district. Canberra formerly had no representation in Australian federal politics, but was granted limited representation in both houses in 1973. On the other hand, Brazil has an expressly-built federal district with full representation in federal government. Mexico and Argentina also have federal districts with full representation, but they are less directly comparable in that Mexico City and Buenos Aires were major cities long before their federal districts were established.

History

In 1961, the Twenty-third Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, allowing District residents to vote for president and vice president. This right has been exercised by D.C. citizens since the election of 1964.

In 1978, Congress passed on to the states another constitutional amendment, the District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment, which would have given the District its own voting members of Congress, making it virtually a state. However, a seven-year time limit was placed on the amendment, which was subsequently ratified by only a handful of states, far short of the three-quarters (currently 38) required for it to be ratified.

In anticipation of the amendment's ratification, in 1980 District voters approved the call of a Constitutional Convention to draft a proposed state constitution, just as U.S. territories in the late 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries had done prior to their admission as states. The proposed constitution was ratifed by District voters in 1982 for a new state to be called "New Columbia". However, the failure of the proposed U.S. Constitutional amendment was deflating to the statehood movement, and the necessary authorization from Congress has never been granted.

Pursuant to the proposed state constitution, the District still selects two "shadow Senators" and a "shadow Representative" to lobby for statehood in the two houses of Congress. These positions are not officially recognized by Congress. In addition, Congress has passed a law forbidding the spending of any money to lobby for statehood.

Proposals for Change

Advocates have proposed several, competing reforms to increase the District's representation in Congress. These proposals generally either treat D.C. more like a state (see D.C. Statehood) or involve the state of Maryland taking back the land it ceded to form the District, as Virginia did in 1847.

Statehood

Outright statehood for D.C. was last discussed in the U.S. House of Representatives in November 1993, and was defeated by the vote of 277 to 153.

Proposals to treat the District of Columbia in same way as a state

In 1978, an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would have given full congressional voting representation to residents of the District of Columbia passed through both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives. However, by 1985, when the seven year limit on ratification of the amendment set within the Congressional resolution adopting it expired, the amendment had only passed in 16 of 38 states necessary.

Senator Joseph Lieberman introduced The "No Taxation Without Representation Act of 2003" (S. 617) on March 13, 2003, in the U.S. Senate, and Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton introduced the same Act in the U.S. House of Representatives (H.R. 1285). This legislation would treat D.C. as if it were a state for the purposes of voting representation in Congress. Unlike a constitutional amendment, a bill such as this, even if passed, could theoretically be repealed again by a future Congress.

Proposals to retrocede D.C. to Maryland

The process of reuniting D.C. with the state of Maryland is sometimes referred to as retrocession. The original District of Columbia was formed out of parts of both Maryland and Virginia, and from 1790 until 1801 citizens living in D.C. continued to vote for, and even run as, candidates for the U.S. Congress in Maryland or Virginia. In 1846 the land from Virginia was given back to Virginia, such that all the land in present-day D.C. was once part of Maryland. If both the U.S. Congress and the Maryland state legislature agreed, jurisdiction over the District of Columbia could be returned to Maryland.

Under a less ambitious proposal, residents of D.C. would be treated as Maryland voters for the purposes of Congressional elections. Congress could give D.C. residents the right to vote for Maryland candidates for the Senate and House, and Maryland's representation in the House could be calculated accordingly.

Proposals to grant voting representation only in the House

A compromise may even be reached which would allow the District's delegate to Congress to be raised to the status of a full voting member of the U.S. House but still leave the District unrepresented in the Senate. This would reflect the original logic that Senators are supposed to represent states (which the District is not), while members of the House represent the people. Most legal experts believe that even this compromise would require a constitutional amendment. However, a recent bill, the DC Fair and Equal House Voting Rights Act of 2006 introduced by Congressman Thomas Davis of Virginia and Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton of the District of Columbia; in order to prevent defeat by the Republican majority, the House would grant one more seat to Utah, almost certainly going to the Republicans. Because the Democrats do not wish to see Jim Matheson, the only Democrat in Congress from Utah, gerrymandered out of his seat, the new Utah seat is to be at-large (i.e. elected statewide). It is given good marks for likelihood of passing.http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5398824 The new seat would not permanently go to Utah, it would go to Utah until at least the 2010 census because Utah was the closest to gaining another seat in the 2000 census. After the 2010 census, the new seat would be just like any other seat, and would be given to whichever state wins it based on population. The seat is also only an at large seat until the 2010 census. It will be drawn up as a district like every other seat after 2010. There is the possibility that the new seat could end up going to Massachusetts, as population studies show it is currently a close call whether it will stay at 10 seats or go down to 9. If this were to happen, and heavily democratic Massachusetts retained 10 seats instead of losing 1, it would end up hurting Republicans even more than simply giving a seat to the District.

The District would still be treated differently than a state for purposes of House representation, even if the bill passed. This is because the bill specifically states the number of House members from D.C. cannot exceed one, regardless of population. In the unlikely event that the population of D.C. approaches that of two districts, there may again be calls for a bill to give equal representation.

The bill currently being debated would also have an impact on the Electoral College. Since D.C. already has an electoral vote for the house member they would have if they were a state, the bill would create only one more electoral vote, which would go to whichever state has the new seat. In 2008 that would be Utah, so in the very likely event Utah goes for the Republican candidate for President, the Republicans would get one electoral vote more than otherwise but the Democrats would have the same as otherwise. One additional electoral vote would also bring the total to 539, making a tie impossible unless an elector abstains or votes for a third party.

References

Other countries

Australia

Voters in the Australian Capital Territory orignally had no voting rights, then they gained voting rights for a non-voting representative, which was then upgraded to voting for both voting representative(s) and senators, and then voting in referenda. Self-government was obtained, albeit with a veto retained by the federal government. The only thing lacking was that the territory isn't counted as a state in the "majority of states"; and that territories only have two Senators sitting a three-year term each, whereas states have twelve Senators serving six-year terms.

See also

• Washington, D.C.
• District of Columbia home rule
• D.C. Statehood
• Retrocession (District of Columbia)

External links

• [D.C. Statehood Green Party]
• [DCVote.org]
• [History of Self-Government in Washington, DC], from the Council of the District of Columbia
• [The Stamp Act Congress], Activists trying to raise awareness regarding the lack of Federal representation for Washington DC
• [A Separate and Unequal District of Columbia], Seedorf (May 15, 2006; Updated June 10, 2006)

 

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