No, I don't think we need that.
There's a staunch movement afoot to give Washington D.C. a vote in the House.
Um, no. I don't personally think that the D. of C. is representative of this nation. We are talking, of course about a city that re-elects Marion Barry, and elects Adrian Fenty, who doesn't want his citizens to be allowed to own the means even to protect themselves in their own house.
Washington D.C. is one of the most crime-ridden cities in this nation. Their own chief has declared a "crime emergency."
I don't want these people owning a voting seat in Congress and depriving a state of their own seat.
Labels: crime, disorganization, jeering, problems, social conflict
posted by Matt G @ 3:53 PM
6 Comments:
The seat of government is supposed to be outside any state for a reason.
I am generally opposed to use of eminent domain takings, but I would like to see the Federal Government buy up all the real estate in the District, they never should have sold it. Historic buildings could be provided to States for embassies (ok, ok, liaison offices) and to individual legislators and cabinet officers as residences, and all the rest torn down for parkland.
Matt, if I used your logic, New Orleans would have no representation in the Louisiana legislature. After all, they have a re-elected Ray Nagin whose police force conficated, with force, the legally purchased and owned guns of law-abiding citizens.
I agree with you nevertheless.
Bob, George touches on the real reason: the congress needs to meet on neutral ground.
The Marion Barry reason is just a major reason to lose any incentive to want to do it.
The citizens of DC are citizens of the United States. Deny them their rights to representation in the Congress of the United States, because you do not like who they vote for, and you deny one of the basic concepts that this nation was founded upon.
I am sure that an elected congressman from the District of Columbia would vote against my interests most of the time. So what?
Well, Matt, we have LOTS of citizens in these United States who don't have voting representatives, but who do have delegates to Congress. Check out the U.S. territories of American Samoa, Guam, and the United States Virgin Islands. Check out the U.S. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, which has a four-year cycle "Resident Commissioner," who is their representative in Congress. D.C. does have a non-voting delegate in the House, which is a heckuva lot more than, say, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands get.
It's a district. It's not a State. It shouldn't get the full powers of a State.
The solution is to do away with the district altogether and fold it's territory into the state of Maryland from whence it originally came. (That is what happened to the southern portion of the original 10 X 10mi. district that is now a part of Virginia.) Then the permanent residents would have the same proportional representation as the rest of the country. If neutral ground was indeed needed for congress to meet, then the very small area immediately surrounding the mall, could be designated a Federal zone with only *one* resident - the temporary occupant of the White House.
It might require a constitutional amendment.
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