With Obama, D.C. residents hope for a voice
Voting act would give delegate full power
WASHINGTON - In recent years, residents of this city - the "last colony," some call it - have resorted to political theater in their fight for representation in Congress. They dumped tea into the Potomac River. They sarcastically petitioned for reunification with Britain. They produced license plates that proclaimed they lived in a place of "Taxation Without Representation," which President Bush refused to put on his limousine.
But now, after two centuries of complaint, the District of Columbia may finally be about to get a full-voting representative, if not two US senators and the ultimate goal of statehood. President-elect Barack Obama is an original cosponsor of the DC Voting Rights bill, which would turn the city's congressional delegate, who has limited power, into a full-fledged member of the US House.
Some are hoping Obama will also back measures eventually leading to statehood. The issue could be one of the first legislative initiatives of his presidency, and a test of his commitment to make life better for the district's 581,000 residents, who on average pay some of the nation's highest federal income tax bills.
Backers of the legislation say it is a matter of basic democratic rights and fairness because the lack of representation in the House and Senate disenfranchises a city where African-Americans make up 56 percent of the population - a point made all the more dramatic with Obama, the first black person to be elected president, about to move into the White House.
"You would have thought there were no Americans left without representation in the people's House by the time you had your first African-American in the White House," said Eleanor Holmes Norton, the district's elected delegate to Congress who is allowed to vote in committee and on some procedural matters, but not on the final passage of legislation. "So, if anything, Obama has leaped over history."
Ilir Zherka, executive director of DC Vote, which is funded partly by city taxpayers, said he hoped the issue would gain notice as the nation focuses on Obama's arrival at the White House. "D.C. residents serve in the armed forces but don't have a vote on whether we go to war," he said. "On all of the national questions that Congress addresses, D.C. residents lack the power to shape any of those."
Advocates nearly won approval last year of full voting rights for D.C.'s delegate. The bill easily passed the House and fell three votes short of overcoming a filibuster in the Senate. Obama himself was a prime sponsor in the Senate. Bush, by contrast, threatened to veto it.
In an effort to make a deal palatable, backers crafted a compromise that would give Utah an extra seat in the House, while putting off the question of giving Washington, D.C., two senators or granting statehood. The deal was designed to keep the partisan balance in the House because a Democrat would almost certainly be elected from the nation's capital and a Republican would come from Utah.
But the political equation could unravel. Jason Chaffetz, who last month won election to Congress from Utah, said his state shouldn't get another House member if it means an extra one would be awarded to Washington.
"I think it is trying to cut a backroom deal with Utah and I think it is wrong," Chaffetz said, arguing that the effort is unconstitutional. And without any D.C. deal, Utah officials already expect to get an additional US House seat - from redistricting after the 2010 census.
Chaffetz said he agrees with backers of D.C. voting rights on the underlying issue, saying, "Taxation without representation is fundamentally wrong."
But the Republican said the way to gain that representation would be for Washington's residents either to win congressional support for statehood or to try to reunite with Maryland, which once owned the land on which Washington is situated. (Virginia also gave land for Washington, but recovered it in the 19th century.) It is considered highly unlikely such a measure would be supported either in the District of Columbia or Maryland.
For now, the emphasis is on having a full-voting representative in the House. Holmes Norton, who is confident that the larger Democratic majority in the incoming Congress will pass the measure, has suggested that the bill be approved in time for Obama to sign it by Feb. 12, the birthday of Abraham Lincoln, his political hero who signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
But the measure remains controversial, with the main opposition coming from Republicans who believe it will inevitably lead to a follow-up bill calling for the district to also get two senators, which would probably increase Democratic power in the Senate.
Now that it appears the city may get its full-fledged US representative, the bigger question has become whether Obama would lead a broader effort for senators or statehood, which even some of the strongest advocates view as politically unrealistic in the immediate future.
Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat and a leading advocate of broader representation for the city's residents, said through a spokeswoman that he "supports the idea of D.C. statehood, but the reality is that the DC Voting Rights Act has the best chance of passing at this time."
While there have been a number of reports that suggest that Obama has said he supports statehood, the word is sometimes used in a general way to indicate support for the more limited voting rights bill.
An Obama spokesman, asked whether the president-elect supports statehood, declined to respond directly, instead issuing a statement that said: "The president-elect is a strong supporter of D.C. voting rights because he believes that all Americans should have a voice in our Democratic process."
While Washington, D.C., has more residents than Wyoming, and nearly as many as Vermont, the city's residents have been denied full representation in Congress on grounds that such rights were withheld in the Constitution, which says Congress has the exclusive right to legislate in the district that holds the national seat of government. Supporters of voting representation for Washington say that the Constitution gives Congress the authority to seat a House member from the district, while opponents vow to take the matter to the US Supreme Court if necessary.
The Constitution was amended in 1961 to allow Washington residents to vote in presidential elections, and the city was granted home rule in the 1970s, enabling its citizens to elect a mayor and its government to make many decisions for itself. But Congress has regularly tried to step into local matters.
Backers of voting rights for D.C. residents have asked for a meeting with Obama to discuss his views. Meanwhile, they are hoping that when he rides in the presidential limousine on the day of his inauguration, he will approve the use of the license plate that says "Taxation Without Representation," symbolizing his sympathy with the cause.
Michael Kranish can be reached at kranish@globe.com 