Dear President Barack Obama:

 

Benjamin Franklin didn't have much faith in "the people" governing themselves, and some who signed off on the Constitution didn't believe everyone should have the right to vote.

But what could possibly be the present-day rationale for denying taxpaying Americans full voting representation in the U.S. Congress?

I’m a resident of Washington D.C. in the District of Columbia, which means I do not have the right to vote. The Constitution of the United States proscribes congressional representation as being reserved to “the several states”; and according to the definition of Article I, Section 2 the District does not meet the criteria for one of the "several states". Additionally, that article and section also limits Congress taxation power to “the several states”—and the 16th Amendment gives Congress the power to levy federal income taxes only in “the several states”.

By this logic, Mr. President, all federal income tax obligations should be lifted from the District's nearly 600,000 residents as unconstitutional. Otherwise, the Congress must explain why “the several states” include those of us living in Washington D.C. without commensurate voting members in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. Simply put, the federal government cannot have it both ways. If the District of Columbia is not a state, its residents should be exempt from federal income tax. If the people residing in the District are not exempt, the constitutional provision regarding “the several states” should be applied consistently—giving me and others living in the federal city full voting membership on Capitol Hill.

You're a constitutional scholar, so you should know. Does the Bill of Rights apply only to actions of the federal government. Does "freedom of speech" only protect political speech?

But I digress....

The long and sorry history of disenfranchised Americans living in Washington D.C. has been one of contradiction and hypocrisy. In 1791 the capital of the United States prevailed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania when President George Washington set boundaries for the District of Columbia, carved from pieces of Maryland and Virginia. By 1800 Congress and the president had moved the federal government from Philadelphia to the District; the following year an act of Congress passed legislation that incorporated D.C. and divided "the territory" into two counties. But the laws of both Maryland and Virginia continued to remain in force within the District. Following the passage of this act, citizens residing in the District of Columbia were no longer considered residents of either Maryland or Virginia.

This left D.C. residents unable to vote ...even for the president.

Not until 1961 did Congress restore Americans living in Washington D.C. their right to vote for the President of the United States by adopting the Twenty-third Amendment to the Constitution, which didn't take effect until three years later in 1964, a mere 45 years ago when District voters cast their first presidential ballots. It would be another six years before Congress created a non-voting delegate in the House of Representatives—an elected office with the force and effect of a political eunuch. And since 1982 the posts of “shadow House representative” and “shadow Senator” have been referred to as “congressional representatives” or lobbyists, a job which mostly consists of petitioning the Congress on behalf of residents of the District for "statehood" in order to meet the Constitution's definition and thereby achieve the right to vote on legislation.

Continuing to have no vote in the Congress—230 years after the Framers signed off on the Constitution—D.C. residents have understood the document as a promissory note. By using this language—“the several states”—should also exclude the country’s four commonwealths: Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia since there exists no codicil in the U.S. Constitution clarifying the voting status for a "commonwealth". No national convention has ever been called for and amendment ratifying the commonwealths of Kentucky, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Virginia as one of the “several states”. Apparently, this is not a matter of law but rather a fact simply ignored. Mr. President, is the Constitution of the United States being violated? Did the “best-laid plan” by the Framers in 1788 go astray of its intent when the District of Columbia was created 1781? What’s the U.S. Supreme Court’s view on these matters, as you contemplate naming a justice to the Court? How is it constitutional to continue denying Americans residing in the nation’s capital a vote in the Congress?

Regardless of historical shortsightedness on the part of the Framers, or political indifference currently on Capitol Hill, everyone inside the Beltway knows the major impediment to D.C. voting rights is the Republican Party: If the District were a Republican stronghold, the GOP would be clamoring for D.C. residents to have full representation; but they know, of course, representatives elected by the residents of the District would most likely be Democrats, potentially tilting the balance of partisan power in the House of Representatives and the Senate. (In 2007 a bill to make a District representative a full voting member with only a single seat in the House came within five Senate votes of passing.) Politicians opposed to the idea naturally ignore the fact that Washington D.C. has a larger population than the State of Wyoming, a state which has two senators and one representative. If the United States is truly a democracy, we deserve more than a “shadow” delegation or a "single seat" on Capitol Hill.

Today, at the epicenter of the federal government, pragmatism has been the soul intellectual while becoming fewer in number, refusing to accept equal voting rights as though it would be an urgent threat to all Americans. Such ideologues have grown to become the di regeur in opposing D.C. residents their right to have a voice in the U.S. Congress. The legal right for everyone in this country to vote on legislation does not enjoy a much wider agreement due to political desires that contradict the country's national ethos.

Effectively, Washington D.C. is the only capital of a major democracy where some of its citizens are historically disenfranchised and politically neglected…and another example of American hypocrisy, as old as the bones of Thomas Jefferson and as expected as the rising sun.

Respectfully,

Frederick Louis Richardson

July 4, 2009