More Colonialism in D.C.

Published: December 31, 1994

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Imagine your outrage if the state where you live were suddenly
stripped of representation in Congress, even as that very same
Congress dictated how local tax dollars were spent and ran local
policy -- right down to garbage collection.

The taxpayers of Washington D.C. don't need to imagine.

Taxation without representation is an insult they live with every
day. The incoming Republican Congress wants to add to this
indignity by revoking the District's largely symbolic vote in the
House of Representatives' Committee of the Whole. That is a
colonialist idea. Washingtonians and their Congressional
Delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, are right to be fuming.

With a population of nearly 600,000, the District of Columbia

has more people than Vermont, Wyoming or Alaska. But it does
not have a voting representative in Congress. Although District
taxpayers contribute $1.6 billion yearly to the Federal Treasury --
more Federal taxes per capita than in all but two of the 50 states
-- Washingtonians must beg to use even their local taxes as they
see fit. Congressmen from all over the country meddle in how
locally raised taxes are spent.

Two years ago, House Democrats awarded symbolic floor votes

to four previously non-voting delegates -- from the District of
Columbia, Guam, the Virgin Islands and American Samoa -- as
well as to the resident commissioner from Puerto Rico. That
arrangement allows delegates to vote when the House meets as a
"committee of the whole," which is where it does most of its
legislating. But in cases where the delegates' votes made the
crucial difference in a close ballot, another vote would be taken
without the delegates.

The incoming Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, would now

strip the four delegates and the commissioner of any vote at all.
The Republicans were right to resent the Democrats' transparent
effort to add to their majorities, as well as the wasted time
involved in having to repeat close votes. But surely Mr. Gingrich
can see the difference between the District of Columbia and the
territories. The District pays Federal taxes by the truckload; the
territories contribute nothing.

The incoming Congress swept to victory by touting a new

federalism, promising to make government work for Americans,
not against them. Mr. Gingrich also promised to make the House
more democratic. A truly democratic Congress can hardly justify
denying the District one small voice in the body that controls its
every move.