This morning, after reading stories of millions of Iraqis voting for a new transitional legislature, I attended a meeting of DC Vote, an organization working to get District of Columbia residents a voting representative in the US Congress.
While we can admire the citizens of Baghdad for braving violence to get out and vote, it is painful for DC residents to watch while American troops protect the right to vote in Iraq - while in DC there is no right to vote. In fact, expatriate citizens of Iraq living DC voted this weekend, while their neighbors have been waiting for more than 200 years to vote for a representative in Congress.
Yes, DC residents can vote for President and for their local school board and city council, but presidents rarely pay any attention to DC and without a representative in Congress, the only attention the city gets is when some Member of Congress decides to impose their views on the city by passing a law affecting only DC, blocking something the city council has done or, as happened recently, making the city pay for inaugural security costs (see my earlier blog).
There is a long, awful history of congressional domination of the city - up until home rule was passed in the 70s, a small number of racist Southern chairmen ran this largely African-American city.
DC residents pay taxes, fight and die in wars, including Iraq, many work for the federal government and most are proud to be here in the nation's capital.
DC's license plate says "No Taxation Without Representation". That must end. We'll be telling you more about what is being done to give the vote to thousands of DC residents.
