The nation’s capital reigns as the City Beautiful, a repository of history and, curiously, the seat of a local government that totally defies the American democratic tradition.
The next time you’ve got your camera strapped around the neck and are ambling about the Mall or Lincoln Memorial, consider these facts:
– Washington, D.C.’s approximately 525,000 residents pay nearly $2 billion annually in federal taxes, the fourth highest per capita rate in the nation, behind only Connecticut, New Jersey and Massachusetts. Illinois ranks sixth.
– During the Vietnam War, the city sustained more casualties than 10 states did and more residents were killed in action per capita than 47 states. Even in the brief encounters of the Persian Gulf war, more residents of Washington fought per capita than those of 46 states.
Yet unlike other American citizens, including those who live abroad and on military bases, residents of the District of Columbia — which is predominantly African-American — remain without full representation and voting power. Precious few people, certainly in Congress, seem to care.
The Constitution has uniquely empowered Congress to function as the city’s national and state legislature. City residents, however, lack a real voice in this august body, even though they bear the full burden of federal income taxes. Imagine the same being true for citizens of Chicago, New York or Salt Lake City.
Since 1971 the District of Columbia has elected a delegate to the House of Representatives along with the other U.S. territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands and American Samoa, where residents pay no federal income taxes. These delegates share the distinct disability of being barred from voting on the House floor, where it really counts. None has a senator.
The city’s humiliating second-class status will be targeted this summer in a lawsuit being prepared by city officials and a leading Washington law firm. The outcome could correct the inequities.
The arguments have been outlined in a draft article by Jamin Raskin, an American University law professor, to be published in January in the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review.
The lawsuit, Raskin explained in a recent interview, would rely on the one-man, one-vote rulings of the 1960s, which proclaimed “the right of all people to vote and be represented in their governing institutions.” This principle, he emphasized, is the basis of constitutional legitimacy.
“In a sense the residents of Washington have more interest in what happens in Congress than any other citizens of the United States,” he said. “They have the same interest in national affairs like the budget and taxes, but they also have a specific interest in Congress because it is their state legislature.”
Although the District of Columbia remains a governmental oddity, the Supreme Court never has excluded it from the protection of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Justice George Sutherland stated this principle cogently in a 1933 decision:
“The district had been a part of the states of Maryland and Virginia. It had been subject to the Constitution, and was part of the United States. The Constitution had attached to it irrevocably. . . . The mere cession of the District of Columbia to the federal government relinquished the authority of the states, but it did not take it out of the United States or from under the aegis of the Constitution.”
For a brief period after the Civil War until 1874, the Reconstruction Congress gave all district males, including African-Americans, the right to vote. But mounting debts from civic improvements initiated by Alexander “Boss” Shepherd, the territorial governor, caused Congress to revoke home rule and replace it with an appointed commission that ran the day-to-day operations until the 1970s.
Increasingly, Southern segregationists in Congress gained the upper hand in city affairs and held sway. Sen. John Tyler Morgan (D-Ala.), a former Confederate general, explained to Senate colleagues in 1890 why Congress had killed home rule.
“Now the historical fact is simply this, that the Negroes . . . came in here and took possession of a certain part of the political power . . . and there was but one way to get out . . . and that was to deny the right of suffrage entirely to every human being in the district and have every office here controlled by appointment instead of by election . . . in order to get rid of this load of Negro suffrage that was flooded in upon them.”
Another dominant figure was Rep. John McMillan (D-S.C.), for 24 years the House District Committee chairman until 1972. He bitterly fought all attempts to restore home rule, complaining once, “Who’s going to have time to keep up with (what) all this council is doing uptown?”
Southerners still rule the committees, which oversee city affairs. Relations with local elected officials no longer have a siege atmosphere, but there is no question which side prevails.
Disputing the city’s budget requests for fiscal 1999 at a recent hearing, Rep. Charles Taylor (R-N.C.), chairman of the appropriations subcommittee on the district, cautioned that Congress has “exclusive jurisdiction over the nation’s capital,” even though all local officials agreed on the requests.
The mayor and City Council chairman also were put on the defensive by a congressional critic of a new law that would require all future city employees–the majority of whom are now suburbanites–to live in the city. Rep. James Moran of nearby Alexandria, Va., the panel’s ranking Democrat, said the residency law would “erode” the “constructive and cooperative relationship” between the Congress and the city.
During the last few years, district residents have experienced noticeable setbacks for the modest self-government they had won from Congress in the mid-1970s, when for the first time in the 20th Century residents could elect a mayor and a City Council.
Dominating local politics was the charismatic Marion Barry, whose stormy career as mayor came to symbolize for many the fate of the city’s fragile home rule. Arrested in a 1990 police-FBI sting operation, Barry was forced to quit politics to serve a prison sentence for cocaine possession.
Despite his dramatic re-election in 1994, Barry had to confront a Republican Congress clearly disenchanted with the city’s spiraling crime rate and increasingly dysfunctional schools. Even more alarming was the financial situation, with a backlog of debts totaling nearly $200 million.
In 1995 Congress created a five-member control board–all presidential appointees–to oversee the local government. Since then, the board has chosen a chief management officer to run the bulk of the city’s daily operations and placed most of the elected school board’s powers in the hands of an emergency board.
Adding to the uncertainty, Control Board Chairman Arthur Brimmer recently recommended that three managers–appointed by the mayor with the approval of the City Council–eventually should direct most of the city’s operations.
A lawsuit appears to be the only way to break the status quo.
A move in the late 1970s to gain full representation in Congress through a constitutional amendment failed to attract enough votes in the states. In 1994, the House overwhelmingly rejected a bill that would have elevated the district to statehood.
“I think relations between Congress and the District of Columbia would improve immeasurably if it had representation in Congress,” Raskin said. “If you have a seat at the table, you can work things out politically. Otherwise you get the kind of conflict and recriminations that have characterized federal-district relations over the last decade.”
Although Congress blames the souring of relations on the mayor, Raskin sees Barry as “the product of a polarized environment who thrived on it and the people’s sense of alienation.”
Barry’s recent decision not to seek a fifth term has injected new vigor in city politics. Control board members, meanwhile, talk about the prospect of returning limited home rule to the city. And just maybe the courts eventually will give residents the right to vote in their only legislature– Congress.
