Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Why the District of Columbia Still Doesn't Have Voting Rights


Two major reasons: race and the GOP. Favorite line: "to establish a vote in Congress for Washingtonians, who are overwhelmingly Democrats, Republicans would have to place a moral imperative ahead of partisan interests." I don't see the modern Republican party ever doing anything close to that. If the tea party really wanted to emulate the real tea party and the American founders, they would end DC's system of "taxation without representation."

11 comments:

TJE said...

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=375330

PBM said...

Interesting stat, but I still think DC should have a House member with full voting rights and 2 US Senators. Their population is larger than Wyoming's and only slightly smaller than Vermont's.

Megan said...

That would probably require a Constitutional ammendment making DC a state.

PL said...
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PL said...

I guess my question is: Why shouldn't D.C. have voting representation in Congress? other than that it would be Democratic ;)

PL said...

The Tax Foundation report says it gets its data on federal expenditures from the OMB, which I assume is a reference to the data compiled annually as part of the Consolidated Federal Funds Report (this is the government document that collects this kind of information). That report counts things like government employee salaries and procurement expenses under the umbrella of federal expenditures per state. Which means D.C.’s inflated figure is largely a measure of people living in D.C. who work for the federal government. The statistic does not show how much federal money is being given to the D.C. government or spent per resident, which is what the Tax Foundation framing would lead you to believe.

Megan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
PBM said...

I don't think it takes a Constitutional Amendment just congressional and presidential approval.

TJE said...

The Constitution, Mr. L, the Constitution.

PL said...

HaHa. How droll.

The Constitution is also what clearly lays out the process for D.C. becoming a state. Why hasn't there been more support for this issue- particularly from Congress? D.C. residents are overwhelmingly in favor of it. Aren't Americans supposed to be fans of self-determination?

TJE said...

Mr. L., one word: retrocession!