Fight DC's Stepping Stone to Retrocession
Op-ed, Washington Afro-American, March 18, 2006
By Timothy Cooper
According to a recent article published by the local grassroots advocacy group, DC Vote, the "District of Columbia Fairness in Representation Act," otherwise known as the "Davis bill" in honor of its original sponsor, Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA), is closer to becoming law than any other such voting rights legislation during the "past thirty years." Wow! I said to myself when I saw DC Votes' report: "Republicans be praised!" After two hundred years plus of disenfranchisement, this could be the banner year when we, the long-suffering residents of DC, get a real, live, genuine vote in the US Congress!
Needless to say, local DC politicos who've supported the "Davis bill" are salivating over the prospects of its passage, even though it would provide only a single vote in the US House of Representatives for DC residents and there has been no public debate to entirely justify their "official" support. Testifying before the House Committee on Government Reform last year, Chairperson Linda Cropp embraced the bill like a mother her infant child. She claimed on DC residents' behalf that they were "starving" for representation, and that half a loaf of congressional representation was better than none. (More like one-third of a loaf, actually!) Outgoing Mayor Anthony Williams has been singing the praises of the "Davis bill" all over town, imploring an assembly of national mayors gathered in Washington to support Rep. Davis' brainchild. He told the city mayors to forget about passing a resolution calling for equal representation for DC residents, having concluded that a third of a vote was good enough and asking them not to worry about supporting that little thing called the Senate side.
Now I know that as a good DC voting rights activist, who's spent the better part of fourteen years campaigning on behalf of equal congressional voting rights, and traveled the world gathering international support for DC's noble cause, that I, too, should line up in lockstep behind our leaders and support it, too. But I can't and I won't, even though it's been said ad nauseum by true blue local Democrats that the "Davis bill" is merely an incremental step- final destination date uncertain- toward eventually winning DC its rightful brass ring of full congressional representation.
Okay, so I'll take the rap for being the Paul Revere of the DC voting rights movement, riding through town and warning of dire things to come, but after consideration I believe that this bill, if passed, will end up being detrimental to DC's overall chances of ever winning US Senate representation, at least as a stand-alone, political, historical and cultural entity as envisioned under DC Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton's bill for full representation. Indeed, DC could end up winning the battle for a vote in the House of Representatives only to lose, big time, the war to achieve equal representation in the US Senate where-and let's be frank about this-DC's real potential for national political power really lies. From where I stand the Republicans have DC's elected officials right where they want them to be-nibbling out of their hand at a parsimonious morsel of too little, too late voting representation. Meanwhile, the great banquet door to America's sumptuous political feast of equal, and nothing but equal, representation in Congress remains bolted tight right at the District Line.
The problem is DC's elected officials are so desperate to feed DC residents their morsel of representation because they're "starving" that they're willing to grab any deal, even if it comes at an unacceptably high price in the form of long-term, detrimental, unintended consequences. Geniuses DC's dealmakers are not, if their recent major league baseball negotiations are any indication. But surely, it's better to grab something rather than nothing, they argue. Well, yes, but. While this is necessarily true in the rough and tumble of everyday democratic politics, where compromise is king, we're talking about fundamental rights here-not some budget negotiation. No one else in America has had to compromise their fundamental democratic rights, so why should we in DC? Would Dr. Martin Luther King have been satisfied with a 1965 Voting Rights Act that assured African-Americans the right to vote only one-third of the time? Hardly.
So politically speaking, what are Rep. Tom Davis and his Republican supporters up to by promoting this bill? Rep. Davis's already on record opposing Senate representation for DC residents, so it can't be that he sees this bill as an "incremental" step to full voting rights for DC. And he's a "moderate!" We know that Senate representation for DC is anathema to the Republican Party, except perhaps by way of retrocession to the state of Maryland, as Rep. Ralph Regula (R-OH) has, and now Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) is essentially advocating. So what gives? We know they want to ingratiate themselves with African-Americans nationally, so this bill is a way to prove their good faith, leaving aside the issue that by granting African-Americans one-third of a vote in Congress, another era in American history when they were counted as 3/5th persons for voting purposes is suggested.
The unstated strategy that DC elected officials appear to be oblivious to is that by going lock, stock and barrel for only one vote in the US House of Representatives, Republicans will find themselves in a much stronger position to insist DC residents get their Senate representation not as a stand-alone geographical identity but as the 9th congressional district of Maryland. It should be recalled that Rep. Davis' original theory for the "District of Columbia Fairness in Representation Act" was predicated on just such a legislative strategy-- that DC would find its vote as a congressional district of Maryland.
Now this might not be so spooky if DC residents generally supported DC retrocession to Maryland for the purposes of voting representation. The trouble is retrocession, as a solution to the District's age-old disenfranchisement, has never summoned much more than 20% support from local residents. Nor has it managed to attract the essential backing of Maryland's state legislature, which is legally required. So what may be in the offing is a perennial stalemate. No doubt, Republicans will argue from a position of advantage that the District of Columbia is a city and not a state, and therefore is not entitled to Senate representation. DC politicos will argue that DC will never be equal until it is granted fundamental rights, including Senate representation, and the issue will likely sink into deep, muddy waters, with DC's moral and political arguments obscured from national and international view. Remember, only one Republican voiced support for the DC statehood bill in 1993, and a smattering of Republicans will inevitably be required to win full DC voting rights, as was the case in 1978 when Congress passed the voting rights amendment. With a vote in the House already granted, the fault line will become either retrocession or nothing.
For those who support DC retrocession, this is obviously a good thing. For the 80% of DC residents who don't, it constitutes political checkmate. So if you love the idea of retrocession, by all means you should support this bill, because it's probably the fastest way to get it. If you don't, if you believe DC, as an independent, historical and cultural identity, is entitled to equal congressional representation like every other federal enclave of a democratic republic in the world, including Mexico City, Caracas, Brasilia, Buenos Aires, and Canberra, then the "District of Columbia Fairness in Representation Act" should be rejected, even if it means that we starve for a while longer until the Democrats gallop back into town. According to House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi, at least they support full and equal congressional voting rights for DC residents.
Meanwhile, I'm only too happy to cry out, like Paul Revere, "Retrocession is coming! Retrocession is coming!" DC politicos should think twice about the unintended consequences of the "Davis bill," and be careful what they wish for, because they just might get it.
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