February 11, 2004

Ladies and gentleman, distinguished guests, and members of the press:

Ten years ago, 23 residents of the District of Columbia from all eight wards of the city filed a petition with the Organization of American States, charging that the US government was violating the human rights of every single person living in the nation’s capital because—after 200 years-- they were still denied the basic human right to participate in their own national legislature through duly elected representatives.

Now—ten years later—a decision has been rendered in this case. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights—after holding exhaustive hearings, receiving extensive legal briefs and reviewing the history of the disenfranchisement of the people of the District of Columbia—has determined that as a matter of international human rights law the US government is violating the human rights of each of the petitioners and by inference each resident of the nation’s capital by denying them the right to be represented in the US Congress on general terms of equality to all other American citizens. Not only has it found violations of law but the Commission has also issued recommendations calling on the US to fully remedy the violations.

There can be no question that this landmark decision and the recommendations of the OAS are pioneering in their strategic implications for the cause of equal DC political rights and marks a singularly significant milestone in our 200 year-old campaign to overturn a constitutional injustice that has reduced every DC resident since the founding of this city to the effective voting status of “one man, no vote,” and has rendered them virtually silent in the nation’s grand political dialogue and made them wholly invisible in the legislative decisions taken in the nation’s greatest deliberative body—the US Congress.

Because of this decision we formally announce and celebrate today, the strategic equation has changed in our now global campaign to win equal political rights under the US Constitution.

This decision and this day marks an historic accomplishment by the individual members of the Statehood Solidarity Committee—the victims of continuing human rights abuses perpetrated by the US government. But this historic decision also honors the work and dedication of not only the other democracy activists and political leaders of today—but of all those individuals who have come before us and carried the flag of this cause during the past two centuries. Because of their campaigns, because of our continuing struggle, and now because of this monumental legal decision—we have come to a place we have never been before. We have come into a new era where nothing is what it was before.

By this decision, we now hold legal title to the will of the world community—and the world community is saying this: The people of the District of Columbia must be granted their fundamental human right to equal participation in their own national legislature through duly elected representatives as provided for by international law.

With this decision, the people of this city have become unstoppable agents for wholesale political change. With this decision, the people of this city have a rendezvous with equality.

In 1954, there was Brown v. Board of Education, which led to the desegregation of America’s public schools and fueled the civil rights movement for voting rights for all African-Americans. In 2004, there is Statehood Solidarity Committee v. the United States of America. Like Brown, we believe that this decision will hammer at the Great Wall of Political Oppression that has surrounded the people of this city for 200 years. We believe that one day that Great Wall will come crashing down as surely as the Berlin Wall once did— almost as if overnight.

What this decision does—at its core—is expose the preposterous absence of any modern-day rationale for continuing to deny DC residents’ fundamental political rights under international law. It declares that although there may have been a reasonable justification for the denial of DC political rights 200 years ago, when the fledgling federal government was weak and perhaps even physically vulnerable, and the demarcation of a separate federal enclave was crucial to forging the “Great Compromise” among states to solidify the Founding Fathers’ constitutional enterprise, those reasons no longer exist. To continue to deny DC residents basic human rights undermines an abiding tenet of democratic practice and theory embraced under the OAS Charter: That title to government is freely given by the consent of the governed.

What this decision says in precise, legal terms is that notwithstanding the provisions of the US constitution, which have sanctioned the denial of our rights since the creation of this city, and which have been deemed to be unchallengeable by the US Courts, is that while there may have been a legitimate, objective rationale for creating a separate political status for DC residents once upon a time ago— that distinction has long since turned into a wrongful and arbitrary discrimination, having long since achieved its intended aims.

This is the new paradigm shift that the people of this city and the national public at large must come to understand if they are to appreciate why our status has been declared a human rights violation under international law, for we have proved that there is no rational basis whatsoever for the denial of our rights. We have proved that these fundamental rights—recognized by the international legal community as indispensable human rights-- must be guaranteed to the people of the District of Columbia by the government of the United States of America. We have proved that the residents of this city have been on the right side of history for over 200 years in their relentless campaign to secure these rights, against all odds.

So it bears repeating: Under international law, the separate, non-voting status of DC residents constitutes a wrongful and arbitrary discrimination and according to the Commission it must be remedied.

Thomas Jefferson once said: “I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”

In 1801, Congressman John Smiley from Pennsylvania likened our non-voting status to that of political slavery. Two hundred years is two hundred years too long to be bonded in political slavery. Two hundred years is two hundred years too long to be denied the right to vote. Two hundred years is too long to be victims of an arbitrary and wrongful discrimination. It is time to right the wrongs of history. It is time to remedy the violations.

Let this be said about this decision: America’s injustice towards the people of the District of Columbia can no longer be hidden from the eyes of the world.

But the beauty of what has happened will, we hope, have its most profound impact on the morale of the good people of this city. Through no fault of their own, they have been made unwitting victims of history. They have been made to long endure the sustained cycles of actual political oppression caused by an unwarranted and illegal discrimination and by a federal government that has done too little for too long to end it – to stand with them on the right side of history and in favor of equal rights for all.

So to the people of DC, we say this today: Renew your spirit; take heart in this historic decision; and above all else, stand for justice, and call on the US government to end the violations. End the discrimination. End the rank injustice. Now everything is possible. Now the Great Walls of Political Oppression that have surrounded the Capitol for centuries and barred your way to full citizenship can come tumbling down, if you cast off the spell of victimhood and cross the line to join us in the struggle for equality.

Our victory will be made real.

But let us be absolutely clear: By victory, we do not mean the enactment of partially effective legislation to remedy the violations. A remedy that offers the dubious proposition of “one man, one-third vote” would fall far short of the remedial requirements under the Commission’s recommendations and the mandate of international law. A vote in the House of Representatives only would not—and I repeat—would not suffice to expunge these violations from America’s human rights record. It would only serve to camouflage the continuing violations. A grant of two voting US Senators and one voting representative in the US House of Representatives is the only remedy that would be consistent with the Commission’s recommendations. Any lesser remedy fails. And so would any leadership that supports anything less than that.

Instrumental in the Commission’s consideration of this case was this question: Why should DC residents be the only residents of a federal enclave in the entire Western Hemisphere to be denied equal rights? Why should residents in the federal enclaves of Buenos Aires, Brasilia, Caracas, and Mexico City enjoy full representation in their own national legislatures and not the people of the District of Columbia? Its answer was unequivocal: They should not. By their very nature, human rights are universal rights to be guaranteed under the force of law to all.

In a sense, as viewed through the prism of history, the decision by the Inter-American Commission vindicates every word ever uttered in support of equal political rights for the citizens of this city by activists of yesterday and today, throughout the 200 year history of this struggle. This decision is for them. This decision is for the ages. It dignifies our struggle and legitimizes our goals. And it should telegraph one simple message to everyone living in the District of Columbia today: Equality will be ours.

America’s era of impunity is over. It can no longer act dumb, deaf and blind to our plight. America can run but it cannot hide from this judgment of the international community, which has said that no nation, no matter how powerful, is above the law. Dignity will in time be ours. And as surely as there will be sun after days of rain, the people of this city will one day have their rendezvous with equality—and absolutely nothing less.

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