The citizens were getting frustrated. They had been dutifully paying their taxes, but the tyrannical government didn't give them any say in how that money was spent. They had loyally answered their country's call during a time of war, but instead of providing for them when the war ended, the government made them pay its war debts through more taxes. Then it imposed all sorts of burdensome new acts, for which the citizens footed the bill with still higher taxes.
The citizens decided to petition their government for a redress of grievances, but instead of listening, the government simply made their activities illegal. \No taxation without representation!"" came the cry from the disenfranchised citizens. Together they vowed not to rest until they had secured democracy for themselves and their posterity.
Philadelphia, 1776? Actually, it's Washington, D.C., 2004. In our rush to spread democracy abroad, we have overlooked the fact that nearly 600,000 citizens of our own nation's capital are under the tyranny of our U.S. Congress.
Congress has total authority over the District of Columbia. It has the power to impose taxes and legislation, to approve or reject the city budget, to dictate the uses of the city's own locally raised tax dollars, to overrule the elected local government on any issue and to ignore the results of binding ballot initiatives.
Some of Congress's more egregious uses of these powers include banning needle-exchange programs that slow down the spread of AIDS, throwing out the results of a ballot initiative legalizing the use of marijuana for terminally ill patients, forcing the city government to spend $400,000 of local money to change all airport signs to read ""Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport"" and, in 1997, stripping elected officials of all significant power and giving it to an unelected ""Control Board.""
Despite all the power that Congress has over D.C., the city has only one House ""delegate"" who is not allowed to vote. It has no Senate representation whatsoever.
Unfortunately, this situation is legal because it is expressly written in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution that Congress shall have power over the federal seat of government. At the time the Constitution was written, it was vital that the new capital city, which didn't gain permanent residents until years later, be a purely federal area so that neither Maryland nor Virginia would try to use their close proximity to exercise disproportionate political influence on behalf of either the northern or southern states.
Now, however, Washington, D.C. is a vibrant city of more than 570,000 people who pay the second highest taxes in the nation, report for federal jury duty, and serve in the military. Even as concerns over regional tensions and power by close proximity have become obsolete, D.C. citizens are still denied voting representation in Congress. It is a cruel irony indeed for D.C. veterans who fought for democracy overseas yet are denied those same democratic rights in their hometown. To add insult to injury, Congress recently barred the city from using public money to lobby for voting rights.
Taxation without representation must end. The only way to ensure that it will is to pass a constitutional amendment extending budget autonomy to the D.C. government and voting representation in the House and Senate to D.C. citizens so that they may have the same constitutional rights as their fellow Americans in the 50 states.
Now if you happen to be a Republican, some of your colleagues may tell you that, since D.C. is overwhelmingly Democratic, you shouldn't support giving them voting rights because it will only put more Democrats in Congress. While this is probably true, the disenfranchisement of law-abiding Americans is an injustice that goes far beyond partisanship. As Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., admits, ""It's hard to make a straight-faced argument that the capital of the free world shouldn't have a vote in Congress."" Ask your fellow Republicans: How can we look a D.C. veteran in the eye and say, ""We appreciate your service, but we won't give you the right to vote in Congress because we're concerned about losing our majority?""
Whatever your political persuasions may be, when candidates ask for your vote saying that they're in favor of building democracy in Baghdad, ask them if they're in favor of building democracy in our nation's capital as well.
Nick Barbash is a sophomore majoring in political science and international studies. He can be reached at opinion@dailycardinal.com.
