A Step Closer
That sound you hear this morning isn’t traffic, or the birds chirping or even today’s impending thunderstorms brewing, but rather the sound of Mark Plotkin rejoicing. This morning, Shadow Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton and Representative Tom Davis (R Vienna) will be announcing a bill on the floor of the house that, if passed, would grant DC a real honest-to-God vote in the United States House of Representatives, and also add another representative from the state of Utah as part of the process.
This would certainly be a step forward in recognizing the unique position of the District as home to 550,000 people, who have no representation in the US Congress, and I heartily endorse the measure, but is this enough? This will take away the argument that DC lacks representation in Congress, and could potentially leave us with just a single vote in the House, wielding precious little power in the face of a body that holds final say over the laws and budget of the District.
Is this a good compromise?
The Representative would be nice, especially if they were in charge of District affairs, but there are more people in DC than in Wyoming – I want TWO Senators also!
Anything less ain’t right.
It’s good to want things and overall I’m for it, however I think there’s a good case to be made against it. At 61 square miles of land the District is smaller even than than the 2 smallest states which have about 1000 and 1900. That doesn’t count the quantity of that under Fed/Park control, which is significant.
Norton isn’t the “shadow representative”. That completely meaningless post is held by Ray Browne. Norton has the ALMOST meaningless office of Delegate to the US Congress.
If anything it’s a start.
It’s a good start to being recognized as a state, which means we can finally also start working on real representation for the occupied territories like Puerto Rico, Guam, etc, and give them they statehood they deserve as well.
You might want to ask the Puerto Ricans how they feel about it.
Don – When did geograpghy have anything to do with it?
States get 2 Senators per state and Represenatives based on population, with zero (0) consideration for size difference. Vermont and Alaska both have 3 Congressmen and they are slightly different in size.