CONGRESS; Debating Voting Rights Amidst a Sea of Taxation without Representation

[Land Shark]

Congress is considering giving DC a VOTING rep in Congress, but only if Utah gets a new Representative which is guaranteed to be a REpublican District (while DC is guaranteed Democratic). This means DC voting rights have a chance, since the 1-1 tie implicit in the bill is what passes in DC as "fair." Looking at this from a rights perspective, which is really the enormously more important perspective, the situation for voting rights in Congress is truly appalling, since every consideration they make on this subject is within a sea of TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION which Congress deliberately perpetuates and has for a couple of centuries now.

Even the conservative Washington Times had two “regular” columnists call the lack of a DC voting member in the House of Representatives a disgrace: See
http://washingtontimes.com/metro/20070319-103740-8607r.htm (Semantics need not stop a bedrock principle, By Adrienne Washington, March 20, 2007, Washington Times)

If the new bill is passed to create a DC voting representative, we will lose the rich and ambiguous sense of history that I got a strong whiff of in the course of attending an election-related conference in Washington DC. Namely, the sense that the Voting Rights Act and for that matter every Congressional bill is passed or not passed amidst a sea of 500,000 mostly African-Americans suffering from "taxation without representation," despite (in recent years) the license plates of a good number of vehicles carrying that memorable American Revolutionary phrase throughout the DC metropolitan area. And this also despite Thomas Paine having been saying along with other Founders since the later 1700s that to lose the vote is literally to be rendered "a slave".

While no one should suffer taxation without representation, it is regrettable that the voting right that would eliminate this reality should have to be purchased with a Congressional seat in Utah as consideration, because while this evens things out between Republicans and Democratsin the House of Representatives, in Utah no citizen is presently suffering taxation without representation or any other similar gross denial of voting rights that would balance the VOTING RIGHTS scales, which aren't normally the subject of balancing tests in the aggregate where one side of the scale registers "complete denial". Groups such as FAIR VOTE have lobbied for this bill, but calling it "fair" is going too far, though I support the bill anyway.

But, it is not, after all, unprecedented in our Nation's history to have to purchase one's way out of slavery of the worst types, so presumably the slavery described by Thomas Paine created by the lack of a true voting right is a sort of haunting historical echo of some sort; something that one can only purchase one's way out of with either blood or treasure, pursuant to some sort of evil American counter-tradition.

It is also regrettable that this political compromise would be deemed "fair" in any "fair" sense of the word "fair." Nevertheless, it should be accomplished forthwith at whatever the price or ransom demanded, since it is so long overdue. Demonstrably, no matter what the excuses are for centuries of inaction to correct this taxation without representation, it is clear that all that Congress needs to deny American citizens their voting rights is a reason. And that is indeed a tenuous and frightening position to be in.

Liberty is never safe while Congress is in session, particularly if complacency is the national pastime of the "watchdog" media. But complacent or not, as Adrienne Washington wrote for the Washington Times, it should never be forgotten that Congress "can't figure out how to extend the inalienable rights to their fellow Americans who live and work a good morning's constitutional from their hallowed halls."

But the Holt Bill (part II) has 192 cosponsors of both parties in Congress and that is going to set our system dead bang straight! :sarcasm: More like, the Holt bill is another epic nightmare for democracy. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x459022

[kpete]

1. K&R