and I still insist

[acroyear]

the current DC voting rights proposal is utterly unconstitutional and flawed.

• my reading of the Constitution is clear that it requires being a state to have house representation at all
  
• i'm against the very thought of a state-wide at-large seat in congress because it is against the Constitution's idea that the house represent people by district

only an amendment will change either of those, and that's not forthcoming while the Republicans control more states.

Comments

[rsteachout.livejournal.com]

I would certainly favor making DC the equivalent of PR and Guam and other protectorates in terms of taxes, if that would resolve the matter of representation rights. But I don't think the hard-core DC statehood advocates would accept that, and the agitation and push for full representation in both the House and Senate would continue.

I have to disagree about your statement that there never really was any intention to have citizens living within the District boundaries. Alexandria used to be part of the District, (one of the oldest towns in the country, established well before the U.S. was even a gleam in any founding father's eye), as was nearly all of what is now Arlington. Part of the reason that the VA portion of the District was receded to the state of Virginia was that the citizens of Alexandria discovered that, contrary to their expectation, they did not have any extra political clout with or financial benefit from Congress by virtue of their being part of the District, and so they petitioned to be returned to the state from which they had been separated. (See, a person *can* learn things from the comic pages -- this info was passed along via the wonderful "DC Flashbacks" cartoon which runs weekly in the Washington Post).