A congressional committee approved a bill yesterday granting the District a full vote in the House of Representatives, giving the measure its first victory in what will probably be weeks of fierce wrangling as it moves through Congress.
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform voted 24 to 5 for the bill, an endorsement its supporters expected. But in a likely sign of things to come, there was feisty sparring, with opponents calling the measure unconstitutional and marshaling amendments to derail it.
One amendment, which was successfully attached to the bill, seeks to prevent the District from eventually getting voting representatives in the Senate.
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Even if it clears the House, though, the bill faces big hurdles. It would have to be approved by the Senate, where so far it has elicited little support from Republicans. It also would have to be signed by President Bush, whose staff has expressed doubts about its constitutionality. If it succeeds in becoming law, it will almost certainly face a court challenge.
In yesterday's committee session, several of the bill's opponents focused on the constitutionality of the measure. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) said he had an added worry: that the bill would merely be the start of an offensive by the District to secure Senate representation.
So did you get that? Citizens of Washington, D.C.-- American citizens-- have no real representation in Congress; their consolation prize is a single non-voting representative in the House. Democrats are trying to get DCers the same representation in the House that everyone else already gets, and Republicans won't support it because it could lead to them getting representation in the Senate, too.
This really should be simple: American citizens living in DC deserve the same representation as people everywhere else in the country, and anyone who believes Congress shouldn't move mountains to guarantee every citizen full representation has no business serving in an elected federal office. If you don't get that most fundamental kernel of American democracy, then I don't see how you can possibly be morally or intellectually equipped to make, execute, or interpret laws in this country. Every American citizen has the basic, inalienable right to representation in the federal government by a congressperson and 2 senators. Period.
If that is not true, then why did we declare independence from England? Remember "taxation without representation?"
Since the Constitution doesn't grant DC an equal number of congresspeople and senators, an amendment likely must be passed. This is not controversial, however, seeing as we've passed several amendments over the years granting more and more Americans the right to full representation, normally via expanding voting rights.
Why is this even in dispute? It can't be simply because the Constitution doesn't currently allow it; after all, the GOP has shown no such aversion to amending the constitution in the case of gay marriage, for instance. One reason, and one reason alone: Republicans don't want 2 more Democratic senators:
One amendment, which was successfully attached to the bill, seeks to prevent the District from eventually getting voting representatives in the Senate.Republicans are willing to deny American citizens the right to representation in the government if it buys their party more power in the senate.
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In yesterday's committee session, several of the bill's opponents focused on the constitutionality of the measure. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) said he had an added worry: that the bill would merely be the start of an offensive by the District to secure Senate representation.
How, then, could these Republicans possibly deny that they put their party over their country?
Really puts their recent attempts to "fix" election troubles with voter ID laws and purged voter rolls into perspective, doesn't it?
