Op-Ed: U.S. Senate Checks the Bet on D.C. Voting Rights to the House

Quick! Ask the person next to you, "How many members are there in the U.S. House of Representatives"? Expect a pregnant pause followed by a number in question form. 344? 430?

This is not a trivia question when one considers the implications that could result should the U.S. House of Representatives pass H.R. 157 which would allow the citizens of the District of Columbia one elected representative in Congress. Currently, the House membership stands at 435, but with passage of the bill the number will rise to 437. Why an increase in two and not one? Simple, Republican members of Congress know full well that the majority of D.C. residents are members of the Democratic party, so in order to keep a closer balance of power they gave Utah an additional representative. There you have it all wrapped up in a logical sequence of civics, the American Way, and the fortunes of Democracy, except that Utah won't be punished by the bill. The bill, The District of Columbia House Voting Rights Act of 2009 has a provision that would repeal D.C.'s strict gun control law and render the city council powerless to reduce violent crimes committed with guns. Utah citizens get a pass for voting red, the citizens of D.C. get an increase in violence. Maybe it's the rhetoric that has so many of us stumped on this issue because for years on end we have heard from the folks who live to the right of the political spectrum that the all-important factor of good government is local control. In this case, even the village idiot could point out that without such draconian gun control measures the lives of 500,000 citizens in the city stand in jeopardy.Here was the perfect chance for the members of the U.S. Senate to leave local control at city hall instead of hoisting a nasty petard toward an honorable city council seeking to fulfill the wants and needs of its people. None of this comes as any surprise to the folks in D.C.. They know that advances in enfranchisement are a slow, painful, begrudging process. For example, it took the voters more than 182 years of pitiful groveling before they won they right to cast ballots in presidential elections, never mind the fact that they were disenfranchised on Congressional elections. That was 48 years ago, 1961. Citizens at the nation's capital have car tags that read: "Taxation Without Representation". I bet hidden in the dark halls of Congress one could find a stack of license plates that say: "No Representation Without Retaliation".