Progressive Democrat Issue 110: DC FOCUS

On ongoing issue of interest to my DC readers is, of course, the fact that citizens living in DC have less representation in the Federal Government than citizens of the 50 states. This is, in many ways, simply an anachronism left over from a time when the states making up the new United States didn't want any particular state to house the Federal Capital, so a new district, with no representation in the government, was formed. Maybe it made sense then. Today it disenfranchises more than half a million Americans who have no Congressional voting rights. In essence, DC, with a population slightly more than Wyoming, has no vote in Congress. Wyoming has 2 Senators and 1 Representative, yet fewer people than DC. This is clearly unfair.

One organization working on this issue is DC Vote. They are pushing for a legislative solution which will give citizens of DC a vote. The Constitutionality of a legislative solution remains to be determined, but DC Vote has legal opinions from conservative legal experts like Judge Kenneth Starr and Viet D. Dinh that support Congress' authority under the U.S. Constitution to give the District of Columbia voting representation in Congress through simple legislation. They claim that Congress does not need to amend the Constitution or make DC a state to bring American democracy to America’s capital.

To help bring DC voting rights in Congress, please visit DC Vote's Action Center.

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