On August 31, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee became the first candidate for the Republican presidential nomination to endorse full voting rights for the District of Columbia. He said, “They’re American citizens. They pay taxes and it just doesn’t seem right that someone could be even partially disenfranchised.” He endorsed HR 1905, the bill that would give D.C. a voting member of the House of Representatives, combined with an additional seat for Utah. HR 1905 passed the House on April 19, and is likely to be considered by the Senate when Congress returns on September 4.
PART OF THE PROBLEM, NOT MUCH OF A SOLUTION!!
What about Guam, American Samoa, PR, United States Virgin Island, Gitmo [Cuba], Marshall Islands? It makes much more sense to have the District of Columbia morph into the County of Columbia and transfered to Maryland.
In the larger picture, maybe a bigger, better idea is to have a straight popular vote by all eligible citizens, even to the point of returning to the 48 contiguous states.
Trillions For Defense, Not One Dime For Empire……
The Marshall Islands have been an independent nation since 1990. Puerto Rico has its own special tax system and Puerto Ricans do not pay US federal income tax.
Residents of the District of Columbia pay federal income tax (and provide services through local taxes to thousands of freeloading federal government commuters from Maryland and Virginia every day), but have no vote in Congress. The United States is, once again, all alone among western democracies, this time in terms of its capital city or district having no vote in the national legislature.
To whom would it make “much more sense” to have D.C. become part of Maryland? Certainly not the Republican Party of Maryland, that’s for sure.
And Guam and the Virgin Islands?
And whom cares about the Spiro T. Angew branch of the GOP?
To whom would it make “much more sense†to have D.C. become part of Maryland?
Just about anyone with a brain. Why should a city be treated like a state? DC is in Columbia County, Columbia County is in Maryland, Maryland is in the US. That is how it works.
HR 1905 does not constitute “D.C. Voting Rights” because it is less than full statehood. Only when D.C. gets not just a Congressperson but also two Senators like _every other state_ will the people living there have full voting rights.
HR 1905 is a recognition that the Statehood movement is stronger than many within the beltway would like to admit.
Article 1 Section 8 Paragraph 17 of the Constitution of the USA states “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,”
Retro-cede all but 10 miles square of DC to Maryland.
The 10 miles square would include all public parks and government building, and ALL residences would be returned to Columbia County, Maryland.
See Also (youtube debate question):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNjfXNBGGkQ
The entire District IS ten square miles. Only 40 percent of DC is directly owned and administered by the federal government; this includes all federal buildings, parks, and the National Capital Area, which consists of the National Mall and all immediately surrounding federal buildings. So if most of DC were retroceded to Maryland, you’d have about 4 square miles left over that would remain under federal jurisdiction. Not ten.
Regardless, the State of Maryland does not want the District of Columbia. Period. Their approval to such a plan is requisite to it being adopted. They’re not biting.
Second, Washington, DC is not a city. It is a federal district. It is the only one of its kind, and thus any comparisons to typical cities and/or the U.S. territories are not apt. DC residents are subject to all of the responsibilities of American citizenship (i.e. federal taxation); the territories are not. Additionally, the DC Gov’t performs all of the functions of a state government (and Congress treats it as such in nearly 500 different legal circumstances): it operates its own school system, tax code, infrastructure…and none of this is supplemented by funding from a state government. Approximately 75 percent of the District’s budget is raised exclusively from local taxes (which explains why DC has THE HIGHEST per capita tax rate in the nation), and yet the budget is subject to congressional approval. This translates into the DC government facing a shutdown while it waits out partisan wrangling in both chambers of Congress over needle-exchange programs and domestic partnerships, programs that the people of the District want but are denied, because a Senator from Idaho or a congressman from Florida is squeamish about drug programs and homosexuality. These are politicians who are elected to serve their constituents at home and are in no way held accountable for their actions with regards to the District of Columbia,
DC residents are American citizens who shoulder the burden of every other citizen in the 50 states, and then some. But these people are given little or no consideration when it comes to how their money is spent, when their children are sent to war, or how their community is shaped. This is a disgrace, and it is a problem that deserves greater consideration than smug quips and glib suggestions of retrocession to MD. Is this truly a democracy if we are incapable of providing our own citizens with their most fundamental right to self-government?