Here’s a thought: let all the territories combined have representation. There can be two Senators from “The Territorial Areas” and the representation in the House of Representatives will be based on population, as it is now. The “The Territorial Areas” will have the number of Representatives their population level dictates.
Before you say, “That’ll never work because the territories are too different from each other,” remember that we Northern Californians have to deal with those Southlanders when it comes to our representation in Congress.
On a more serious note: do the residents of the various US territories (district, free association, etc.) pay any federal tax?
That’ll also never work because Guam, the Marianas Islands and the Virgin islands added together don’t have enough people for a single Representative. Add Puerto Rico to the mix and you suddenly have around 7 Representatives. That seems terribly ineffective and unfair to me.
D.C. pays the same taxes as everyone else, hence the slogan “Taxation without Representation.”
Guam:
Looks like they pay regular taxes, though it’s unclear whether they have state taxes.
Mariana Islands: I can’t find out. Same deal with the American Virgin Islands.
Puerto Rico: They do not pay federal income tax, but do pay for SS and Medicare.
American Samoa: This year they got 63% of their budget from the feds ($121 million total), but that doesn’t necessarily mean they pay normal taxes.
Ah yes, those congressmen and senators certainly do a good job representing NE and SE D.C., don’t they? What an absolutely ridiculous comment on your part, Chronos.
You know, for a lot of people opposed to some kind of representation for DC, I think deep down the answer to your question that the residents of DC are less deserving than the people of any other state in the union.
Invariably, in discussions of this topic, someone brings up Marion Barry. The underlying message seems to be that Washingtonians voted in a way that the poster finds disagreeable and therefore are not entitled to a vote (which would seem to be at odds with the whole conept of voting). I think if you scratch deeper, but not too deep, the message is that the largely black voters of DC can’t be trusted with the vote because they make bad decisions. If DC was majority white, I think a lot of the people currently opposed to voting rights (especially those from northern VA) would not have a problem with it.
Speaking as a resident of Prince George’s county, I would happily welcome DC as part of Maryland, but I don’t think that’s likely. For one, if Maryland absorbed the nearly 600,000 people in DC, come the 2010 census we would be more likely to aquire another representative, who would probably be a Democrat, so its politically unfeasible to work it that way. Thats the beauty of the Utah compromise, it balances out party representation.
As to making DC a tax-free zone; my inner libertarian screams “yes!” at the idea, but it seems to me that would instantly make DC the most expensive place in the world to live since anyone from Bill Gates on down could then save millions (or more) per year by moving here. The pricing out of the Districts poor people has been on-going for some years, but this would really seal the deal.
I do not propose to fold it back in. Simply being allowed to vote would remove the taxation wiythout representation problem ,which I consider to be serious.I can read.
Virginia is a state, it just calls itself a “commonwealth”. Nothing in the Constitution requires states to use the “State of X” nomenclature. Texas could declare it’s name to be “Republic of Texas” and replace it’s governor with a president, yet it’d still be a state with all the same powers of the states.
I actually think that DC residents should have a vote in Congress. All I was saying is that I did’t mind not having the vote when I was there because the person who would represent us in the House would have made a terrible Representative, in my opinion.
Doesn’t it strike you as somewhat silly for people to be voting for a Representative who will most likely not be from their district and who will not be officially representing them at all? I suspect there would be a Constitutional problem with this as well
You can’t count D.C. citizens as residents of Maryland, because D.C. is not in Maryland, and without that, Maryland would simply have to sacrifice a seat for D.C.; and then you have the whole gerrymandering issue. Having D.C. residents vote in Maryland without being a part of it is, I think, a worse idea than adding the non-governmental portions of D.C. to Maryland.
Another argument solidly supported by the ephemeral hopeful wisps of smoke that are the mainstays of the emanations and penumbras crowd.
Your first example is not remotely on target. The phrase “without due process of law” IS taken literally. The proper procedure required IS the “due process of law.”
Your second point is no stronger. The words “peaceably assemble” are clearly present. You object to one construction of them. But the construction is not contrary to the express words of the text; it merely decides what theymean applied to a specific set of facts.
The final point is the only one that has even a scintilla of merit… and that’s all it has. While there is no “public policy” exception in the text, it’s obvious that SOMETHING like it has to exist, or the notion of separate states with separate laws would mean nothing. Taken ultra-literally, Virginia could pass a law forbidding state sales tax being charged to any of its residents, and Virginia shoppers could then flock to North Carolina and demand that “full faith and credit” be given to Virginia’s law.
There must be some way of harmonizing the dictates of the full faith and credit clause with the notion of separately sovereign states. The Supreme Court has crafted the public policy exception as one way to do that. I grant that it’s not a textual requirement; I aver that it’s manifestly necessary as a way to conform the FF&C clause to the rest of the document.
Now maybe you’d like to explain the sudden love for plain text that infects some on the Left when they read the phrase “A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free state…” and why that love vanishes the second they move on to the other parts of the document?
OTOH, it apparently would unbalance the Electoral College: Utah would gain one elector in 2008 under the compromise, but D.C. wouldn’t.
This is important because in 2004, John Kerry came within 37,550 votes (in IA, NM, and NV) of a 269-269 Electoral College tie. He would have then lost in the House, of course, but the chance of such a tie is still quite real for the 2008 Dem nominee - if Utah doesn’t pick up the tiebreaking vote - and the Dems would probably ultimately win the Presidency in an EC tie, either in the House (if the Dems, now ahead 25-22-3 in state delegations, pick up #26 next time) or in the Senate (if the Dems retain a Senate majority, and neither party wins in the House).
The best solution for DC’s status is for it to become a state – a state including the suburban areas of Virginia and Maryland. (Of course, the legislatures of those states would have to agree to give up those counties – with all their tax revenue and all their problems and expenses.) DC by itself, in its current borders, is not so economically viable as a state, and much of its working population actually lives in the suburbs.
Of course, that means the current voters of DC wouldn’t get to elect their own (almost certainly black) two senators, and the current local elite in DC wouldn’t get to run their own state – they’d have to settle for running their own city (Washington), plus some voice in the government of the state (Columbia or New Columbia).
Otherwise, cede the whole works back to Maryland. Washington, Maryland, would have exactly the same constitutional status and representation as any other major city. Probably roughly as many congresscritters – and as many representatives in Annapolis – as Baltimore City has now.
I don’t like the way this has evolved for D.C. I think they should have a voting member of congress as long on their population is ~500Kish. No Senator. Having said that:
There are real numbers from 2002-03 on the finances of this
In summary, in FY02, DC should collect almost $800M in real property taxes this year, as shown below, with $537M derived from commercial properties. It will forgo $166M in non- governmental tax-exempt properties; $65M in DC government property; $190M in federal parklands, and $217M on federal buildings such as the capitol itself and the Lincoln Memorial.
So DC lost ~$407Million in Property tax about half of what they did collect. (Now, it is very hard to believe all that federal parkland would be converted to taxable use – but these are the numbers we have to work with).
DC Received a $660M federal grant annually to make up for this, (660-407= 253)
So it was getting $253M p/year for not being able to tax commuters, for parades, demonstrations etc (Inaugurations costs are almost entirely paid for by the Feds), Having a great many non-profit (untaxable) business in town, the cost of providing city services to non-profit, and government-only businesses (which pay nothing in but may require EXTRA services), the limits imposed by the Feds (i.e. the height restrictions that force no sky scrapers - or even high-rise – development). On top of being given every cent of Property tax it was due.
Again, I get it. DC would rather control its own destiny. But the deal it has with the Feds is very much closer to a financially fair one, than the “we can’t tax 38% of our city” (which is true) DC government crowd would have you believe
Unfortunately, that’s never going to happen. Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties in Maryland are revenue generators for the state of Maryland, so ceding them away would force the rest of the state to either raise taxes or cut services.
Of course, just as conversely:
D.C. is likewise a net tax loss given the small and impoverished tax base - even with higher tax rates than Maryland, D.C. only ‘gets by’ on 600 million dollars in subsidies from the Federal government, and ‘gets by’ in the sense that the city isn’t quite a festering filth-hole.
With Virginia, it gets even less likely given that D.C. is exceedingly Democratic, and Virginia Republicans are in no way going to support a plan that adds 350,000 new Democrats and 30,000 new Republicans to the rolls.
While making D.C. a State would be the most directly fair way to do things, it’s no more politically viable than Utah deciding to self-divide into 5 seperate states so that it can elect 8 more Republican Senators.
There is no reason for DC to be poor. The political powers that be want to keep it that way so they can remain in charge. Change would threaten them.
Anyway, there are many reasonable ways to give DC residents the vote, or failing that to exempt them from the income tax. Those ideas will not fly as long as they are not supported by the DC Political classes.