House to eliminate the DC vote
 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- One of the first acts of the new Republican-controlled House is to take away the floor voting rights of six delegates representing areas such as the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and American Samoa.
Five of those delegates are Democrats, while one, from the Northern Marianas Islands, is an independent.

The GOP decision to rescind the ability of delegates to vote on amendments on the House floor was the predictable outcome of a longtime dispute.

Democrats extended those voting rights in 1993 when they controlled the House. Republicans disenfranchised the delegates when they became the majority in 1995, and Democrats restored delegate rights when they regained control in 2007.


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Kinda makes you wonder if the majority of these delegates were GOP if this would have been done.

Hmmph. I wonder what my voters' registration card is good for now, other than lighting it on fire and warming my hands with it for 10 seconds.

Whatever else one may think of this, the delegates in question have not been disenfranchised. The reporter needs to learn what that word means.

Um I actually don't see how this is a big deal. It seems to me that the reporter is misrepresenting what this means. While yes the delegates had the right to vote in the Committee of the Whole in the past, they were not allowed to cast the deciding vote, so in reality the vote really meant nothing.

Right. Largely symbolic.

So, one could argue.. why take it away then?

Perhaps because it's not permitted under the Constitution?

Oh, yeah, that's not necessarily a good argument, because so many other things fit the same bill, but one has to start somewhere.

Anybody who doesn't agree with DC statehood can eat shit and die.

j/k don't die

Is it expressly prohibited in the Constitution?

DC isn't a state for a reason. Things make better sense as they are.

It would continue to make sense if there weren't a bunch of people living there, but there are.

No they don't.

This is a debatable point. The Constitution clearly gives the House the authority to make its own rules.

And there is the whole "no taxation without representation" argument -- granted, not a constitutional argument, but certainly an argument woven into the woof and warp of Independence.

It's not addressed in the Constitution at all, because the Constitution doesn't contemplate congressional delegates from DC or other territories. Clearly, delegates cannot be voting members of the House of Representatives, as that is limited to the representatives of the states.

The compromise that has been struck so as to give residents (taxpayers) of DC and the territories some voice in Congress is to allow, by House Rules, delegates (not representatives) to vote in committee and have voice on the floor of the House. What is at issue in this particular instance is when the House is acting as a Committee of the Whole.

^^2nd

Under the original Constitution, votes were apportioned to the people in the House. The Senate was appointed by the states themselves. As D.C. isn't a state, I can't see any justification for them having a voice in the Senate.

As for the House, I'm not sure what D.C. has to complain about. They are #1 in per student funding (by a wide margin), etc., they don't have much to complain about there.

As for autonomy, symbolically, I think the arrangement is ideal. The states rule over the capitol rather than the capitol ruling over the states.

We have 4 commonwealths that are not states and they a voice...

Like I said, taxation without representation. I think that's a lot to complain about. It led to revolution, you may recall.

I can readily agree (sorry, Sen) that there are valid and appropriate reasons for the District of Columbia not to be a state. I can also agree that the role of the Senate (in theory, at least) is to represent states, not represent "the people." And I can agree that DC is different from other US territories.

I cannot, though, agree that United States citizens should have no meaningful representation in the Congress that imposes taxes on them and enacts laws they must obey simply because they live in Washington. Nor can I see how giving DC a true, voting representive in the House -- where he or she would be 1 of (presumably) 436 members -- would lead to the capital "ruling over" the states.

Exactly...please repeat that.

MC, the problem is, that unless they add a new seat, someone will lose a seat. Most likely that'd come out of the midwest, but who knows? Could be anyone in the House. Would you voluntarily do anything which created a 1:436 chance of you losing your job even if it had some marginal benefit for your coworkers?

And aside from that, the cynic in me says that in the House, the people really don't have meaningful representation anyhow, (unless those people are CEOs of Fortune 500 companies) nor would 1:436 be meaningful either.

If one doesn't matter, why do the small states even bother?

Oh.. wait.. one matters?

Maybe 'cuz the small states are states?

The point is even one vote matters. And should we add more states to the union, or you know have a census, the number of representatives changes anyway. The idea that we shouldn't add a vote just because it will change the representation elsewhere is silly. I think the only real options to solve the taxation w/o representation issue are to have the non-governmental areas of DC annexed by VA/Maryland or to allow some sort of representation of DC itself. If that requires amending the constitution, so be it.

If your argument is just that the current house won't vote to add a seat because they might lose their own seat (and I'd argue that many would vote hoping one of the other party might lose a seat) that's the politics of it, but it doesn't actually address the policy.

I feel for them on the "taxation without representation" issue. It makes me crazy that I have to pay Detroit income tax but, since I'm not a resident, have no vote in City of Detroit politics. This particularly comes into play when the political scene in the city is such a mess.

Do you get a refund on city income taxes at the end of the year? I know that the rate is 1.25% for non residents and 2.5% for residents. I'd like to see Detroit reform their tax system, the taxes are outrageous. I was looking at buying a house in the city but after finding out the Property tax millege rate was 68 (compared to Royal Oak being 34 and Grosse Pointe being around 54) it would be too much. That $135,000 house in Palmer Woods had a property tax bill of $11,000. Ridiculous.

I actually usually owe them between $9 and $11. To change the amount withheld, I'd also have to change the amount withheld from the state because they use the same number of exemptions, which is annoying. The current rate is 1.5% for non-residents and 3% for residents. When Karmanos moved CompuWare headquarters into the city, they gave everybody a 1.5% raise to make up for it. He seemed like a decent guy until he gave Kwame a job..lol. I know people who have walked away from their houses in the city proper because of the crazy property tax rates and the income tax (not to mention their home owners and auto insurance, but we'll stick to taxes here). Some of them bought foreclosed houses with cash for about 3 years worth of property taxes on the homes they walked away from.

If you work part time in the city, you only have to pay taxes on wages earned while working in the city. So, for example, if you work in home health care and some of your patients are in Detroit but some are in a suburb, you can track your hours. Those people get refunds. People started claiming hours spent working from home as non-city work hours and that was made illegal last year.

ETA: I've always wondered what proportion of the total income tax for the city comes from non-residents vs. residents. Since the CEOs and execs for so many major companies work in the city proper, along with all the doctors at the major hospitals, professionals, etc. I think non-residents probably pay a larger proportion of the total revenue.

Oh I forgot to add that the millege for an investment property that isn't your primary residence is $80 for every $1,000 assessed. No wonder the middle class is fleeing the city in droves. Just wait till the NEZ tax abatement programs end and the property taxes jump up on all of the newer condos and lofts in town. It's cheaper to live in the burbs than it is to live in the city. Oh and the streets are plowed and the police actually show up when you call in the burbs too.

And you don't have to send your kids to private schools/charter schools in the 'burbs either.

Then add a seat. The number of representatives is set by statute, not by the Constitution, so Congress can deal with that without anyone losing a seat. I don't see that as a problem at all.