No Taxation Without Representation

In the United States of America, there currently exists a group of people that are treated like second-class citizens. I'm talking about the residents of the District of Columbia. They are currently the only people in the country that pay full federal taxes, but do not have representatives in Congress that get to determine the rate of those taxes. Sadly, the only reason it hasn't been corrected has been pure partisan politics.

Given the nature of our nation's founding, this is an egregious violation of one of our most sacred beliefs. The phrase "No Taxation Without Representation" was a rallying cry during the American Revolution. It was the principal upon which the Stamp Act was rejected and the Boston Tea Party took place. The colonists did not believe that taxation could be applied to people that had no representation which could protest or alter such taxes. So how come more than 240 years later we are still letting this happen within our own country?

People that are against voting representation for Washington D.C. residents will tell you that the district was set up this way back in 1789, and they're right. The initial concern was that no state have police or funding power over federal employees. But today it would be pretty easy to let DC have full representation and governance, while retaining independent congressional control of all governmental buildings in the district. Under this system no state, not even the new D.C. could put pressure on federal employees.

It doesn't really matter how the district was set up in 1789. Things have changed since then. The constitution has been amended twenty seven times over the ensuing years. In 1961, the twenty-third Amendment was passed, giving the district three electoral votes in the presidential election. The world didn't end. The sky didn't fall. Our republic still stands. And now it's time to pass a new amendment, giving the district full voting representation in Congress.

There have been recent attempts to pass a bill called DC Fair and Equal House Voting Rights Act. It would grant the district a voting representative in the House, but not in the Senate. To placate Republicans (who know the extra seat would be occupied by a Democrat), the proposal also calls for an extra seat being given to Utah. This is political partisanship at its worst. The District of Columbia deserves the same voting rights as any state, and to refuse representation for political reasons is disgraceful.

There are 601,723 citizens in the District of Columbia. This is 33,423 more than the state of Wyoming, which has two Senators and one Representative. Other states like Alaska, North Dakota, and Vermont have less then 100,000 more residents than the district. All of these states have two Senators and one Representative. Why do the citizens of these states deserve more rights than the citizens of our capital city?

The District of Columbia deserves full voting representation immediately. They should have the one Representative and two Senators they would be entitled to if they were a state. There is no sound logical or ethical argument against giving them their due representation. And that representation should not be contingent on adding representation for another state. If you're going to make them pay full federal taxes, then they should get an equal vote on those taxes and they should get it now.