The following column is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
When my wife and I moved to Washington, D.C., in the summer of 1999, a rebellion was about to take place. Not one like the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, but one by the government of the District of Columbia as expressed on the license plates of the vehicles registered there: “Taxation Without Representation,” was printed on all issued plates beginning in May of 2000.
The message echoed the American colonists’ fight against British rule in the 1700s: “Taxation without representation is tyranny!” The 21st century statement was protesting the lack of congressional voting representation of the 700,000 citizens living in the “District” or “DC” as we call it.
It certainly had my support. It didn’t seem right or fair that I was asked to pay federal taxes yet had no one in Congress to vote on government programs that used my money.
Nearly 21 years later, it’s still that way. We lived in the District then for 10 years, bought a home, served on several juries and rode the Metro subway system to work there nearly every day.
Granted, I could vote for president, and the city government — a mayor and city council which still exists at the whim of the Congress — and even for one delegate to the Congress who can vote in committees but not on the floor of the House of Representatives.
Is that about to change? With the election of Democrat Joe Biden as president and Democrats now controlling the House, that could happen. But there are a lot of factors weighing against it: racism, partisan politics, Senate rules and tradition.
See, a vote by both Houses of Congress and a signature by the president on a bill will create the District of Columbia (or whatever the name might be) as a state of the union and grant residents two U.S. senators and one member of the House of Representatives.
In case you haven’t kept up with the news, Republicans in the Senate don’t seem eager to enfranchise voters in the District (or anywhere else for that matter!), 47% of whom are African-Americans.
Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky doesn’t seem to think the good people of D.C. would vote for Republican candidates there. He’s probably right: 76% of D.C. voters are Democrats and only 6% of the voters are registered Republican.
When I lived there, I served as vice chair of the Republican Party in the District’s Third Ward, where most of the Republicans lived.
The Republican agenda nationally and in the states has, of late, not been particularly friendly to Black voters. Witness the 250 some bills that have been introduced by Republicans in the various states — mostly in the South — to suppress the vote by people of color.
They’ve been dubbed “Jimmy Crow” or “Jim Crow 2.0“ laws. Republicans in Congress have been outspoken in their opposition to the Democrats’ attempt — a bill called HR 1, which would help to federalize certain election laws — nullifying the various state attempts to keep or put Republicans in power.
It is sometimes argued that the District’s small population and high percentage of federally owned buildings and land should disqualify it as a state. Those arguments fall flat when it is noted that D.C. has more residents than the states of Wyoming and Vermont.
About one-third of the land in D.C. is federally owned, while in Nevada, for instance, 85% of the land is owned by the feds and two-thirds of the land in Idaho and Utah is federally owned.
So, what’s keeping that Democratic majority in the House and in the Senate (with the help of Vice President Kamala Harris) with Biden’s pen at the ready in the Oval Office from passing legislation to make the District a state?
It’s a Senate rule called the filibuster, which under the current iteration, requires 60 votes to pass most laws. A senator can invoke the rule and keep the D.C. statehood bill from going anywhere.
Which all the Republicans say they will do. There are even two Democrats, including Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema, who aren’t too keen on doing away with the rule (it’s not a law) which could be eliminated by a simple majority (again with the vote of Harris).
The filibuster was instituted decades ago to supposedly protect the rights of the minority so majority rule would not always prevail on controversial issues, like segregation. Southern senators used it time and time again to stymie civil rights laws — witness Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina.
The argument over D.C. voting rights is as old as the country. When the District was designated the national capital, the founders wanted to insure there wouldn’t be a squabble among surrounding states claiming jurisdiction, so it was determined Congress would be the government of the capital district, and no one living there could vote, but would be levied taxes.
Chief Justice John Marshall supposedly settled the taxation question in a case before the Supreme Court in 1820. He wrote that it is the duty of all citizens to pay taxes: “Representation is not made the foundation of taxation,” he said.
Constitutional maybe, but not right, many Washingtonians have continued to argue over the years. That debate continues today. The Congress and the president have the opportunity now to settle the matter: statehood for the District of Columbia.
