The tea partiers all get to vote for representatives who in turn vote in Congress. Not so for 600,000 Americans: WASHINGTON - The District of Columbia has waited more than two centuries to get a vote in Congress, and now it looks like the city's roughly 600,000 residents will have to wait even longer. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced Tuesday that lawmakers will not take up legislation this week giving D.C. residents a vote in the House of Representatives, and said he was "profoundly disappointed." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36665822/ns/politics-capitol_hill/ Weak-assed spineless congressional democrats strike again. With all of the unwarranted focus on "tea parties" this would be the perfect time to shine a light on this ridiculous situation where there is actual taxation without representation. With the majorities in both houses, this would be an ideal time to bring this to a vote.
*crickets* So let me get this straight, they have no representative? If thats the case its a big time failure,even more than normal, on both sides.
I actually agree with this--DC residents should have voting Congressional representation--that said, wouldn't it require amending the Constitution?? (At least to get voting representation in the Senate, and the lone House rep wouldn't make much of a difference anyway) If I'm a DC politician I play the "taxation without representation" card and go the other way--DC residents should pay federal taxes at 2/3 the rate of everyone else (they do vote for the executive branch and the judicial branch at the federal level is unelected).
They are currently just talking about adding 2 representatives in the house. According to the article, congress passed a bill that was then never ratified by the states. I'm not 100% sure of the process, but I know the situation that has existed for more than 200 years is untenable. I could see reduced taxes or how about making them Virginia voters?
You have it straight. They currently have a non-voting member of congress that holds zero power. Not sure if she sits on any committees but I'm sure she doesn't vote.
Well...how do they justify 2?? Montana, Delaware, South Dakota, Alaska, North Dakota, and Vermont all have more residents than DC (per Wikipedia)--Montana has almost 400k more--and all only have 1 Rep. Letting them vote in an adjacent state is a decent idea in theory except that will quickly turn into a partisan battle--Democrats will want them to vote in VA, Republicans in MD. And historically speaking, I believe most if not all of what currently makes up DC was originally part of Maryland--so from an objective point of view it would be difficult to justify having DC residents vote in Virginia.
Who said anything about statehood. I want them to have a representative in congress. The question you SHOULD be asking (but I won't hold my breath) is what the tea party movement has to do with the historical tea party event. The Tea Party was the culmination of a resistance movement throughout British America against the Tea Act, which had been passed by the British Parliament in 1773. Colonists objected to the Tea Act for a variety of reasons, especially because they believed that it violated their right to be taxed only by their own elected representatives. Sounds a lot more like the current residents of DC than it does to some dickhead holding an Obama/hitler sign while he has his own representatives in congress.
They don't. My mistake. I knew that the proposed bill would increase the house from 435 to 437 so I assumed it would add two in DC. The bill actually adds one in DC and one in Utah that would likely balance a democrat with a republican.
The real irony is the the original tea party was a protest against a corporate tax cut! Not that teabaggers can be expected to know anything about American history, of course.
I got so sick of "taxation without representation" that I moved from DC to Virginia. So now I can vote to my heart's content. Hell of a lot of good it did me.
Y'all can hammer me, but the District should not have any vote for congress, at least as currently set up. What, precisely, will their representative be for? DC is a company town, and has less balance of interest than any place else in the US, hands down.
You've said this before, and it was stupid then, too. We let Alaska and Hawaii be states. Both are little more than colonial outposts--one for purely extractive industries, the other for strategic military bases.
I just figured that DC residents reward in lieu of representation in congress was the premiere franchise in MLS.
True story: A week or so ago I was talking to some co-workers and the subject of DC came up. Someone said that they'd seen a DC license plate and was surprised to find out that DC issued license plates (!). I asked if it said "Taxation without Representation" and they said yes, but they didn't understand why. They didn't even really understand what the District is. As I explained it, it was obvious that several people had never even thought about it. Sigh. It was discouraging, especially since I work at a non-profit where almost everyone is very educated and informed about the world and yet they knew next to nothing about their own capital city.