I learned something new yesterday: the District of Columbia has the lowest suicide rate in the country.  Why?  Until the Supreme Court decided otherwise, DC had a tough handgun law - few handguns in homes=fewer suicides.

Common Cause has no position on gun laws, but we do strongly support democratic rights for DC (as well as everywhere else).  But some in Congress are prepared to tromp all over DC home rule and impose an ill-considered gun law on DC -- even though the DC City Council already passed a temporary law in response to the Supreme Court decision and is working on a permanent law.

Global warming, high gas prices, economic distress, health care?  Forget it - Congress has better things to do: Dump on the rights of DC to pass its own laws, something they would never do to their own hometowns.

Read on for the text of a coalition letter:

Fifty years ago today, Congress passed the Alaska Statehood Act, giving Alaska, among other things, two Senators and a US Representative.

208 years ago, Congress, apparently without noticing what it was doing, allowed Americans living in the then-new District of Columbia to lose their right to representation in Congress.

Today, Alaska has a population of 670,053; DC's population is 581,530 -- both roughly the size of one congressional district.

Alaska has three Members of Congress - pictured here, all under ethical clouds.  DC has one non-voting Member of Congress - no ethical clouds for Delegate Norton, just no vote.

I've got nothing against Alaska and they deserve better representation in Congress, but DC deserves voting representation now.  The Senate needs to vote again to end the filibuster by Senator McConnell and give DC the vote!

What do people who don't live in our nation's capital know about the city?  Not much - a lot of myths and misinformation.  Some don't even realize it is a city with nearly 600,000 residents; or that it wasn't until 1974 that it had a local elected government - 185 years after the Constitution.  According to one survey, few Americans know that DC doesn't have voting representation in Congress - more than 80% - but when told about it, they support the vote overwhelmingly.

Here's a quick anecdote from a DC resident visiting Georgia, illustrating the poll's analysis.  Here's what one person said when told about the lack of a vote: "Well, that's just wrong. Shouldn't be like that."

read more...

As I noted last week, there's a link between the District of Columbia and the Maryland congressional district being vacated early, and in an unseemly manner, by Rep. Al Wynn. They share not only a boundary and some Beltway exits, but soon MD4 may be without representation in Congress - just like DC. Here's the WaPo editorial today:
A clear majority in the Senate support the bill. We only need three Senators to overcome a filibuster: A couple of Dems, Baucus (MT) and Byrd (WV) and one Repub, maybe Hagel (NE) or Smith (OR). Live in those states? Give them a call.

Pick up one of the series of state quarters and take a look at the image and "motto".   Does it reflect the way you think about your home state?  Not likely.  These quarters are bland, bland, bland.  My home state's quarter (see photo) says Gateway to Freedom?  Oh yeah, that's the first thing that comes to mind when I think of New York.  And I'm sure residents of Ohio and North Carolina are agitated as hell about who should have the Wright brother's plane on their quarter.

So, it's not surprising, but still disturbing, that the US Mint yesterday quickly rejected DC's proposal that DC's quarter include the "controversial" motto Taxation Without Representation.  I'd tell DC residents to call their representative in Congress -- but what's the point?  She has no vote.

Next Tuesday, February 12, District of Columbia citizens will have an opportunity to join their neighbors in Virginia and Maryland and vote in DC's presidential primary. But, unlike their neighbors and every other American in the 50 states, they will not have an opportunity to vote for a representative in the U.S. Congress.

-- got to go - more later...here's a photo of the DC Voting Rights march last April.

When the Senate failed to end the filibuster on the DC Voting Rights Act, there was a lot of talk by opponents about the Constitution.  But behind the rhetoric there is a lot of ignorance about the District - even with Senators who live and work in DC.

One myth is that DC is full of transients, who come here to work in politics for a few years and then leave.  Marc Fisher, in the WaPo, has some stats disputing that myth.  And one of his readers succintly put down this notion:

And here's Fisher's list of cities and % of people who were born in the city and still live there:  -- read more --