Thursday, March 29, 2012

DC Congressional Representation

Today is the 51st anniversary of the ratification of the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution which granted the residents of Washington, D.C. the ability to vote electors for the Presidency to the electoral college.  Folks who live in the District are American citizens who pay taxes and live by the same laws, yet who have no voting representation in the Congress.  They have limited home rule because their budget is overseen by Congress and as a result, representatives from places very distant will use the power of the purse strings overturn democratically supported initiatives from the citizens because these representatives have ideological agendas they want to force upon them.  The irony, of course, is that those who keep their clutches on Washington are also ones who crow the loudest about "freedom" and "democracy." 

Washington D.C. has a larger population than the entire state of Wyoming and about the same as Vermont.  Should they get Congressional representation?  Should they be attached to Maryland  or Virginia?  To have the capital of a representative democracy not be represented in that democracy ought to be a point of embarrassment.  How should the situation be resolved?