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A Senator from D.C.?
The Wall Street Journal ^ | As of Wednesday, January 14, 2004 | JOHN STEELE GORDON

Posted on 01/14/2004 5:26:07 AM PST by presidio9

Edited on 04/22/2004 11:50:51 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]

The District of Columbia held the first-in-the-nation presidential primary election yesterday. Well, sort of. It's non-binding, and few showed up for an election that makes no difference. The election's real purpose is to protest the fact that, along with children and felons, D.C. residents don't get to vote for members of Congress.


(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events; Philosophy; Politics/Elections; US: District of Columbia; US: Maryland; US: Utah; US: Virginia
KEYWORDS: dc; dcprimary
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To: presidio9
Completely ridiculous non-starter.

With 600,000 (?) residents, DC is a little less than the average Congessional District. They SHOULD be absorbed by either Virginia or Maryland, if anybody could stand their unruliness and corrupt politics.

21 posted on 01/14/2004 6:48:00 AM PST by DoctorMichael (Thats my story, and I'm sticking to it.)
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To: presidio9
Nope. I believe the COnstitution forbids it.
22 posted on 01/14/2004 8:34:14 AM PST by theDentist (Boston: So much Liberty, you can buy a Politician already owned by someone else.)
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To: presidio9
Interesting idea.

Would the rats trade 2 of their 3 permanent electoral votes for a permanent House seat? I doubt it.

Should they? Probably.

One sticky point that the proposed Amendment does not address, however, is redistricting. Would the MD legislature be in charge? If so, what stipulations would they have to observe regarding the DC portion?

23 posted on 01/14/2004 8:58:41 AM PST by rhinohunter (Toomey for Senate!!!)
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To: BlackRazor; Pubbie; JohnnyZ; Kuksool; Clintonfatigued; Dan from Michigan; Coop; Impy; LdSentinal; ..
"Would that mean that DC's 3 electoral votes would vanish, in return for Maryland getting one additional House seat and 1 additional electoral vote? If so, I would be willing to make that tradeoff."


I have long advocated what the author proposes. Yes, DC would no longer have 3 electoral votes, although Maryland would go from 10 to 11. Adding the DC voters to MD's rolls would make the state prohibitively Democratic and it would take a miracle for a Republican to carry the new, larger Maryland (Bush would have gotten 37.3% to Gore's 59.2% in 2000, and since DC started voting for president in 1964, the only Republican to carry the combined DC and MD vote was Nixon in 1972). However, the last time Maryland went to the GOP candidate in a close presidential election was way back in 1948 (when carrying MD by 1.4% still wasn't enough for Dewey to defeat Truman), so I think we should see this as a net loss of two electoral votes for the Democrats rather than the creation of an 11-electoral-vote Democrat state.

And, for the record, giving the residents of the District of Columbia the right to vote for members of the House and Senate, as well as the President, is the right thing to do. They are U.S. citizens subject to federal laws, and should certainly have the same rights as all other Americans. It's just that DC isn't large enough to be its own state, so its residents should be citizens of Maryland.

There, that was simple enough. Now the hard part: Convincing the State of Maryland to take on all of the problems of Washington, DC.
24 posted on 01/14/2004 9:00:21 AM PST by AuH2ORepublican (Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.)
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To: presidio9
No to DC, No to "Puerco" Rico. The latter would give us 7 Dem congressmen to DC's 1, with two Democratic Senators each.
28 posted on 01/14/2004 11:08:53 AM PST by Clemenza (East side, West side, all around the town. Tripping the light fantastic on the sidewalks of New York)
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To: AuH2ORepublican
Now the hard part: Convincing the State of Maryland to take on all of the problems of Washington, DC.

Three Words: Prince Georges County.

29 posted on 01/14/2004 11:10:45 AM PST by Clemenza (East side, West side, all around the town. Tripping the light fantastic on the sidewalks of New York)
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To: presidio9
No way. you want a Senator? Move to MD or VA
30 posted on 01/14/2004 11:33:11 AM PST by pgkdan
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To: presidio9
From the Dec. 1912 annual Address to Congress, President William Howard Taft wrote of this pesky and insolent question:
From time to time there is considerable agitation in Washington in favor of granting the citizens of the city the franchise and constituting an elective government. I am strongly opposed to this change. The history of Washington discloses a number of experiments of this kind, which have always been abandoned as unsatisfactory. The truth is this is a city governed by a popular body, to wit, the Congress of the United States, selected from the people of the United States, who own Washington. The people who come here to live do so with the knowledge of the origin of the city and the restrictions, and therefore voluntarily give up the privilege of living in a municipality governed by popular vote. Washington is so unique in its origin and in its use for housing and localizing the sovereignty of the Nation that the people who live here must regard its peculiar character and must be content to subject themselves to the control of a body selected by all the people of the Nation. I agree that there are certain inconveniences growing out of the government of a city by a national legislature like Congress, and it would perhaps be possible to lessen these by the delegation by Congress to the District Commissioners of greater legislative power for the enactment of local laws than they now possess, especially those of a police character.
Taft gave a speech in 1909 dedicated to this question that blew away the DC statehood agitators. I don't have it digitized. I'll try and type it up one day and post it here. Great speech.

Nicollo unmasked: Bromleyisms here

See also: William Howard Taft pages

31 posted on 01/14/2004 12:11:39 PM PST by nicollo
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To: fqued
"They are represented by the whole of the Senate and House, because the Legislature controls DC."

But they can't vote for/against any of them. Not quite the American way now is it?
32 posted on 01/14/2004 12:17:44 PM PST by familyofman
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To: presidio9
I say let em have their "representatives", just don't ask the rest of us to bail them out when the socialists of that city destroy it even further than it is now.


33 posted on 01/14/2004 12:25:50 PM PST by unixfox (Close the borders, problems solved!)
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To: unixfox
The socialists they'd send to congress would effect all of us.
34 posted on 01/19/2004 7:55:57 AM PST by Impy (Are dogcatchers really elected?)
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To: AuH2ORepublican
We can't to that to the poor people of Maryland just when they elect a GOP Governor.
35 posted on 01/19/2004 7:57:31 AM PST by Impy (Are dogcatchers really elected?)
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To: presidio9
DC's place in congress has been an issue for a while. Why would people start caring now?
36 posted on 01/19/2004 7:58:37 AM PST by Impy (Are dogcatchers really elected?)
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To: Impy
"We can't to that to the poor people of Maryland just when they elect a GOP Governor."



I know, it's mean. That's why I used to support the creation of a state of New Columbia comprising DC, Prince George's and Montgomery Counties in MD, and Arlington and Fairfax Counties (along with the independent cities enclosed within, such as Alexandria) in Virginia. This would create a fairly large, heavily Democrat state of over 3.5 million residents (it would have around 7 electoral votes) where blacks would comprise around a third of the population. While the new state's electoral votes would almost certainly go to the Democrats, it would make Virginia a Republican stronghold (the Democrat-leaning DC suburbs have made VA more marginal of late) and cause Maryland to lean Republican (Gore would have carried it narrowly in 2000, but Ehrlich would have won in a landslide), so we would likely end up with 17 Republican electoral votes and 7 Democrat electoral votes between VA, MD and New Columbia, instead of the current 13 Republican EVs and 13 Democrat EVs between VA, MD and DC. The problem is that the people of MD and VA would never allow such a large percentage of their tax base to be removed from their state.
37 posted on 01/19/2004 8:14:53 AM PST by AuH2ORepublican (Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.)
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To: AuH2ORepublican
"The problem is that the people of MD and VA would never allow such a large percentage of their tax base to be removed from their state."

Too bad. Sounds like a great idea to me.
38 posted on 01/19/2004 8:38:07 AM PST by Impy (Are dogcatchers really elected?)
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To: AuH2ORepublican
Too bad states can't redistricted. All those senate seats. :p
39 posted on 01/19/2004 8:46:20 AM PST by Impy (Are dogcatchers really elected?)
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