“Taxation Without Representation” - Not Just for the History Books
Posted by Damien Shirley on March 23, 2007 at 05:34 PM
If you spend enough time in Washington, D.C., you’ll notice something unusual— the motto at the bottom of many D.C. license plates, which reads “Taxation Without Representation”. This comes from the fact that, despite being tax-paying American citizens, residents of the District of Columbia do not have voting representation in Congress.
This is an issue we Democrats have been trying to remedy for decades. Yet, yesterday, Republicans in the House of Representatives thwarted our attempt to establish a voting Congressional seat for the District of Columbia.
Instead of passing a simple, direct bill that would give voting rights to the more than 580,000 tax-paying Americans living in D.C., Republicans stalled the bill by attaching a completely unrelated amendment to loosen the District’s gun restriction laws.
The Washington Post reports:
“Legislation to give the District of Columbia a full vote in the U.S. House stalled Thursday when Republicans unexpectedly injected the volatile issue of gun control… [These] developments marked an abrupt turn on legislation that would give district residents voting rights in the House for the first time in more than two centuries.”
The Republicans’ ploy comes on the heels of President Bush’s threat to veto the bill on the grounds that, under the Constitution, only states can be granted representation. Yet, according to Article I, Section VIII, Congress has the power:
“To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States.”
Under the Constitution, Congress has exclusive legal authority over the District of Columbia— therefore, it is fully within their power to grant D.C. full voting rights.
For over 200 years, D.C. residents have been denied a right we Americans hold dear: the right to full Congressional representation. For over two centuries, the residents of D.C. have been singled out as second-class citizens, denied one of the most fundamental tenants of democracy.
The Democratic Congress — working in close partnership with Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton — has worked hard to craft bipartisan legislation to let D.C. residents participate in our great democracy. Yet, once again, the Republican Party has disregarded the Constitution and stood in the way of fundamental American rights.
Isn’t it about time we put partisan posturing aside and finally relegate the concept of “Taxation Without Representation” to the dustbin of history?
Damien Shirley is a student at George Washington University and an intern for The Democratic Party.
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