LCCREF to Study D.C. Voting Issues
Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 3/20/2006
For residents of the District of Columbia, "taxation without representation" is more than a historical concept schoolchildren study in class; it is their modern reality.Civil rights groups have long protested the disenfranchisement of D.C. residents. D.C. residents are required to pay federal taxes and abide by federal laws, but do not have voting representatives in the U.S. House or Senate.
A new study conducted by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund (LCCREF) will address the practical impact of political disenfranchisement on the more than 600,000 residents of Washington, D.C.
The nine-month project will research historical and contemporary examples of disenfranchisement and conduct interviews with past and current D.C. elected officials, economic experts, activists, and lobbyists.
Results from the study will be included in a booklet for distribution to policymakers and advocates.
"Representation in government is a cornerstone of our democracy," said LCCREF Executive Director Karen Lawson. "Congress is in desperate need of documentation of the consequences of D.C. disenfranchisement. This project aims to fill that need."
Before the 1801 "Organic Act," citizens living in Washington, D.C. had full voting rights and were represented in Congress as part of districts in Maryland and Virginia. Since then, there have been many efforts to reinstate their right to vote.
In 1961, the 23rd Amendment restored Washington D.C.'s participation in presidential elections. The District elects a non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives, but critics believe this is not enough.
"Voting is the language of democracy," said Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and counselor to LCCREF. "Without voting representation in Congress, Washington, D.C. residents are a voice lost in the wilderness."
Rep. Thomas M. Davis III, R. Va., has introduced a bill that would grant the District of Columbia a voting representative in the House.
"I think there is a growing realization, even among people who don't like this bill, that you can't spend billions of dollars to bring democracy to Baghdad and not have a vote in the nation's capital," said Davis on WTOP radio in December.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D. Conn., has called D.C.'s disenfranchisement a "stain on the fabric of democracy."
Public support for the full rights of D.C. residents is high. Seventy-eight percent of Americans believe D.C. residents have the same constitutional rights as other U.S. citizens, according to a poll conducted by KRC Research last year. When informed of D.C.'s disenfranchisement, 82 percent of respondents said they believed citizens of D.C. should have equal congressional voting rights - in both the Senate and the House.
But most of the arguments for giving D.C. representation are largely theoretical, according to Donna Lenhoff, who will be conducting the study. "We are trying to find out, in terms of dollars, programs and business opportunities, how D.C. is really harmed on an everyday basis by its lack of representation," Lenhoff said.
The study is expected to be released in late September 2006.
