I wish the Washington Post would have used the picture of me shaking Fenty’s hand…
Nikolas R. Schiller, co-chair of the D.C. Statehood Green Party, dressed as a colonist – complete with purple coat, ruffled blouse and three-cornered hat – to demonstrate how “D.C. residents are essentially colonists.”
Schiller said he considered H.R. 5388 “inherently flawed” because it did not grant representation in the Senate. “It would make residents of D.C. one-third of a citizen,” he said, “and I’d rather be 100 percent.”
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https://www.axcessnews.com/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=11232
Congressional Vote for D.C. Still an Unanswered Question
By Caroline E.Ruse
(AXcess News) Washington – Everyone and no one could agree Thursday when experts shared their opinions on the constitutionality of a bill that would grant the District of Columbia a voting member in the U.S. House of Representatives.
All three constitutional experts who appeared before the House Constitution subcommittee voiced strong support for allowing District residents congressional representation, but two of the three said H.R. 5388 was not the answer.
“At the end of the day, I do not believe this approach is constitutional,” said John Fortier, a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “Congress doesn’t decide what bodies get representation in the House and Senate. The Constitution decides that.”
The bill, introduced by Rep. Tom Davis, R-Va., in May, would give D.C. one representative in the House regardless of population. It would not affect representation in the Senate. The District has no senators.
The bill also would grant a fourth House seat to the largely Republican state of Utah – a move intended to neutralize the bill’s political implications. D.C. is overwhelmingly Democratic. Utah’s representative would be elected on an at-large basis, rather than from a specific district, until redistricting in 2012, after the next census.
Arguments against the bill boiled down to the Constitution’s language. Article I states that members of the House are chosen “by the people of the several states.”
Attorney Adam H. Charnes, however, cited court cases in which the term “states” included the District to show that Congress has the authority to grant D.C. representation.
District residents, numbering 550,000, have been denied representation in Congress for most of United States’ history. They were not allowed to vote in presidential elections until 1964. Although residents pay federal taxes and were subject to the military draft when it existed, they are represented in the House by a non-voting delegate, currently Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C.
The hearing marked the furthest legislation on the long-debated subject had progressed since 1978, when Congress passed a constitutional amendment granting the District voting rights. The amendment failed to receive ratification by the required three-quarters of the states, and it expired in 1985.
Not all advocates for D.C. voting rights who crowded the hearing room were in favor of the bill.
Nikolas R. Schiller, co-chair of the D.C. Statehood Green Party, dressed as a colonist – complete with purple coat, ruffled blouse and three-cornered hat – to demonstrate how “D.C. residents are essentially colonists.”
Schiller said he considered H.R. 5388 “inherently flawed” because it did not grant representation in the Senate. “It would make residents of D.C. one-third of a citizen,” he said, “and I’d rather be 100 percent.”
Other methods by which D.C. residents could receive representation include granting the District statehood, returning much of the District to the adjacent state of Maryland, or amending the Constitution.
Sponsors and supporters of H.R. 5388 hope the House Judiciary Committee will vote on the legislation before the session ends. Congress plans to recess by the end of September to campaign for the November elections.
Davis’ press secretary, Dave Marin, confirmed the congressman had received a letter from Judiciary Chair James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., promising the committee would consider the bill. The bill has passed the Government Reform Committee, on which Davis and Norton both serve, on a 29-4 vote in May.
Source: Scripps Howard Foundation