John Oliver on the District of Columbia’s Missing Political Rights

Americans who live in the District of Columbia pay Federal taxes, die in U.S. wars, but have no vote in Congress. What they have had, for over two centuries, is Taxation Without Representation. Sound familiar? John Oliver explains it all to you:

DC Declines the Deal

 

Once again a bill to allow a single Congressional vote for the tax-paying U.S. citizens of the District of Columbia is the victim of cynical special interest politics. The usual “poison pill” amendment is too subtle for opponents of basic American Democracy; they use firearms, adding an unrelated, unacceptable, and nonseverable gun amendment to a measure for simple justice.  This has nothing to do with the Bill of Rights. It’s attempted extortion, at gunpoint. 

The deal was declined. 

  

  

Image by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com 

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DC is Offered a Vote in Congress

Washingtonians paid Federal Income Tax yesterday, but they still have no vote in the U.S. Congress. Taxation Without Representation. Ring a bell?

When the laws establishing the District of Columbia were created, the founders were too busy bargaining about the National Debt to consider representation of future DC residents, and their negligence has been preserved as if it were intentional. Leaders starting with Andrew Jackson tried to correct this undemocratic oversight, but Congress had inadvertently created a little playpen in DC, where congressmen could throw their weight around without consequences, and they enjoyed it. Two centuries later, they still do.

Pending legislation (S 160 and HR 157) would remedy two centuries of Congressional neglect by granting DC a vote in the House of Representatives. Democracy might finally come to the 600,000 American citizens who live in the Capital of the Free World, but there’s a hitch.

A man of strong moral principles, Republican Senator John Ensign of Nevada (State motto: Meretricis et Alea, “Whores and Gambling”) has added a completely unrelated amendment to the bill. It would throw out gun laws established by the District’s duly elected officials and mandate interstate gun sales (illegal everywhere else in the country). Washington residents would be allowed to buy firearms in Maryland and Virginia.

Welcome, DC Commuters

Rich Green of Arlington, Virginia is upset. He drives his car across the Potomac to his job in Washington, DC five days a week and there are potholes in the road.

“Most of the potholes seem to stick around for months, and they can get to be more than six inches deep,” he wrote to the Washington Post. “Who is responsible for this section of road, and why don’t they repair the potholes …?” he asked.

Mr. Green did not ask who is responsible for causing the potholes or suggest who should pay for repairs.

Others fill in these potholes lacunae in Mr. Green’s complaint:

November 11th in Washington, DC

The U.S. Congress taxed them. Congress declared war and sent them to serve. Some were wounded and some died defending our country, all without representation in that same U.S. Congress. Who are they? The citizens of the District of Columbia who have served in our armed forces.

Meet DC’s veterans today, Veteran’s Day, Noon to 1:30 PM, at Upper Senate Park, Delaware and Constitution Avenues, NE, near the Russell Senate Office Building, between the Capitol and Union Station. Join themas they rally for the DC Vote.

Promoting DC Powerlessness

The District of Columbia wants to preserve the erroneous preconceptions of potential visitors, and a local group is donating $3 million to the effort.

After a million-dollar development project, the Washington, DC Convention & Tourism Corp., newly renamed “Destination DC,” has chosen “Create Your Own Power Trip” as a motto to entice visitors to this residential city of 500,000. The nonprofit is starting a $2 million ad campaign based on the slogan. Part One is called “Power Play.” 

Destination DC wants the DC Government to kick in another $5 million of taxpayers’ funds to the campaign which, coincidently, kicks off with an ad featuring Mayor Fenty (above). Subtle. Talk about your power plays . . . .

A Real Capper

On March 18, 2008, The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear an appeal of District of Columbia v. Heller, which opens the 2nd Amendment can of worms, the States Rights issue, and the disenfranchisement of the U.S. citizens of the District of Columbia. I’m sure it will be very entertaining for people who are not residents of Washington and don’t have to live — or die — with the consequences.

No Quarter!

Writers handle rejection well (they better) but this stung. Not only did the D.C. Government reject my design for our quasi-state’s commemorative U.S. quarter (above), the U.S. Mint rejected  D.C.’s “Taxation Without Representation” design as “too controversial.” This is apparently the first coin proposal in the entire “State Quarter” series to receive an outright rejection.

Lookout, Louie!

 

Just when the people of the District of Columbia thought Louie Gohmert, Our Congressman, was safe, this happens! Out of nowhere, wham! Roger L. Owen is running as an independent back in Louie’s Other District, District 1 out in the Piney Woods of East Texas! Jiminy Cricket!

Louie Gohmert Aborts MLK Speech

 

Congressman Louis Buller “Louie” Gohmert, Jr. (R, TX-01 and DC) misquoted Martin Luther King, Jr. and King David to assembled multitudes of the born and unborn at the recent March for Life Rally on the National Mall in Washington, DC (his second but non-voting district) on Jan 22, 2008.