Currently, DC does not have representation in the House or in the Senate. Residents of DC do get to vote for the President.
Democrats are constantly proposing bills that would allow DC to be represented in the House. In Presidential elections approximately 93% of DC voters vote Democratic. They would do so regardless of who the nominees were (for example, in 1984, only Minnesota and DC cast electoral votes for Mondale – Minnesota’s excuse was that Mondale was from Minnesota, DC had no excuse).
DC’s current license plates say "Taxation Without Representation." The theory is that DC does not have representatives, but it is taxed. This theory is wrong for three big reasons:
1) DC residents are over-represented, not under-represented. I, for example, write laws all day. According to this document, only elected representatives are supposed to be able to write laws, but we don’t really hold ourselves hostage to reactionary documents. We need to figure out ways to reduce DC’s representation, not increase it.
2) DC residents love being taxed. You can’t complain about taxation, when – by all demonstrable standards – you love taxes.
3) DC votes so consistently, generically Democratic, that the District wouldn’t really be "represented" – it would merely elect a person who would vote however Democratic Party leaders told him or her to vote.
Finally, the fact that DC has no representatives is a nice reminder that, ultimately, we are all subjects.
4) The District is not taxed. Yes, they pay some money in taxes, but they receive much, much more in federal funds, making them a net receiver of public money and not a net contributor.
5) The District is not a state; the Constitution is an agreement among the states; etc.
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In this purported government “of the people, for the people, by the people, why does “We the people of the United States” mean that states and corporations can be represented, but over half a million real people cannot? There are two words for this: “Despotic Constitutionalism”.
The central premise of our form of participatory government is that “just power derives from the consent of the governed”. Only in the case of DC, that premise has been abandoned, creating a caste of persons who are effectively political eunuchs, pariahs, who, though by both blood and place of birth (jus sanguinis and jus solis) are unrebuttably citizens of the nation, but are apparently not deemed to be “people of the United States”. So, presumably, they must fit some other category, perhaps something like sub-humans or aliens (foreigners or extraterrestrials)?
Residents of DC belong to the nation in the sense of full membership, not in the sense of chattel property. Of the Amendments to the Constitution, a goodly number were addressed at problems arising from a failure in the initial Constitution to allow voting for other than propertied white males over 21. In a piecemeal fashion, amendments have gradually corrected that original deficiency.
My own suggestions would be twofold:
First, considering that DC residents technically do not reside in the fifty “United States”, we should treat them as we currently do other expatriates who live outside the United States, and allow each DC resident to declare affiliation or affinity with a state, and allow them to vote absentee in that state, like other expatriates.
After all, the Constitution says “the PEOPLE of the several states” not “the RESIDENTS of the several states. Look up the meaning of the word “of”.
Residents of DC –ARE– the people of the several states. They are part and parcel, progeny and posterity of those same founders who pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to preserve our Liberty. They belonged to the original thirteen colonies, which cannot be said of Guam, Samoa, or Puerto Rico. Nor, for that matter, of Hawaii, Alaska, …nor even Wyoming, which has a smaller population than DC.
The people of DC are certainly not the people of the Asian Steppes, nor of the Arctic tundra, nor of the Australian outback, nor of the Argentinian pampas; they, like other American expatriates, are the people of the several [American] states, regardless of where they currently reside.
The second issue regarding DC is the degree of local autonomy. Currently, a simple majority is all that is necessary for Congress to rule with Absolute Power over DC “in all cases whatsoever.” And we all know that power corrupts, and Absolute Power corrupts Absolutely [case in point, here].
If Congress DOES need to maintain the last word over DC, at least the exercise of such Absolute Power ought to require support from broad national consensus, as demonstrated by a requirement for a super-majority of both Houses to impose that Absolute Power. What happened to the central premise on which our country is otherwise based, that “just power derives from the consent of the governed”?
1. Considering that DC residents technically do not reside in the fifty “United States”, we should treat them as we currently do other expatriates who live outside the United States, and allow each DC resident to declare affiliation or affinity with a state, and allow them to vote absentee in that state, like other expatriates.
2.The second issue regarding DC is the degree of local autonomy. If Congress DOES need to maintain the last word over DC, at least the exercise of such Absolute Power ought to require support from broad national consensus, as demonstrated by a requirement for a super-majority of both Houses to impose that Absolute Power. What happened to the central premise on which our country is otherwise based, that “just power derives from the consent of the governed”?
3. The Constitution is an agreement among “We the people” of the United States. The people of DC were/are parties to that agreement, but have been wrongfully evicted.
4. Most of the the Federal “benefits” cited for DC end up going toward services provided to support the federal and international presence: police, fire, traffic, streets, trash, water, sewage, and all the other municipal infrastructure, for which the Federal government does not pay taxes (nor do the embassies and international organizations like the World Bank and the IMF). And MOST of the Federal employees in the area live in the suburbs of Maryland and Virginia, not in DC, which has by FAR the largest ratio of inbound daily (suburban) commuters to actual residents of any city in the US (look it up in census figures).
I don’t agree with the notion that “just power derives from the consent of the governed,” nor is the document that makes that claim of any particular relevance.
And you are … ??? omniscient?