ROGERS: Let Egypt Vote – and DC Too

Lucky for me, my driver’s license is from New Jersey until 2013. Before you bash my home state for providing you with a wonderful sweet-smelling turnpike passage between New York and Philadelphia, my license is a blessing in disguise. My ID and voting registration give me more rights than most of the residents in my Washington, DC apartment building. Like everyone else in Washington, my neighbors don’t have federal representation because of where we live, and an odd constitutional clause.

Sure, DC has its perks — it’s the most educated city in the United States, there’s ‘hiring’ signs in every window and buildings going up in every neighborhood — but it’s not quite a good enough tradeoff for a lack of any voice in Congress. There’s 600,000 of us here, and not a single one of us gets heard. Congress doesn’t care if Washingtonians don’t want to go to war, want school vouchers, or healthcare reform, their voice is flat out ignored. 600,000 American citizens — that’s more than Wyoming for those of you keeping score — get to vote for the President once every four years, and that’s it. Our mayor and council can get vetoed by Congress at any moment, and our delegate to Congress has virtually no power. With my NJ license in hand, I’m more free than my next-door neighbor.

On Capitol Hill, legislators are pounding their desks — okay, the communications staff is pounding the keyboard — demanding full freedom for Egyptians. Every President to call this city home declares America the guardian of freedom around the world and the supporter of those stuck under anti-democratic despots. We’ve started wars to bring democracy to Iraq and Afghanistan. Despite this, our capital city doesn’t have a voting representation in the House of Representatives or any representation in the Senate at all. Washingtonians are not free, at least not as free as most Americans.

Washington’s plight is surely not akin to Egypt’s; anyone living in Washington enjoys the benefits of living in the type of democratic society that Egypt clamors for, but Washington voters cannot fully partake in it, nor direct it.

In the past, Republicans have shamefully blocked DC voting rights — full representation for DC would surely yield a full slate of Democrats — but that is no reason to deny representation to the capital city. Shall we strip representation from deep blue Massachusetts, too? Utah is too Republican, are they too biased for representation as well? Although the GOP has done the brunt of the work blocking DC’s voting rights, two full years of democratic control did us no better.

According to the Constitution, Washington does not get the vote because it’s simply not a state. Whatever DC is — city, federal district or otherwise — it is 600,000 people without representation. Our constitution once denied representation to blacks and women and allowed states to restrict enfranchisement to those with property. Now, we’re discriminating based upon location. Historically, when the Constitution doesn’t allow a group of people to have full voting rights within the United States, we’ve always fixed our founding document to make sure they do. There’s one group left: Washingtonians.

In his State of the Union, President Obama praised the uprising in Tunisia and declared the US an ally to the democratic wishes of all peoples. Now, the President looks at Egypt and sees an entire population stuck without representation, without a vote, and any say in their future. Obama needs to look across the street, too.

If we’re going to talk the democracy talk abroad, we’ve got to walk it at home.

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http://thepoliticizer.com/blog/2011/02/03/rogers-let-egypt-v ote-and-dc-too/comment-page-1/#comment-51374

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