Let’s play a game. Fifty states presently make up the United States. There are 52 weeks in the year. Let’s assign one week to each state, give another week to the nation’s capital, the District of Columbia, and put one week aside for vacation. Now let’s trade. One state will give up its representation in Congress for one week each year in order to allow D.C. to have a fair share of the voting rights on Capitol Hill.

Here is how it will work. You live in Michigan. From February 1–7 none of your federal representatives will be able to cast a vote. You live in Nevada. From March 1–7 none of your representatives will be able to cast a vote. You live in North Carolina. From April 1-7 none of your representatives will be able to cast a vote. OK, you get the picture. What? You care about the crucial votes coming up during those weeks? Well, sorry, you have no vote.

I live in the District of Columbia, along with 572,059 other Americans (according to the 2000 U.S. Census). Although I am allowed to vote in the U.S. presidential elections, I have no voting rights in Congress; no representative, no senators look after my interests or vote on my behalf. I am a political orphan.

The ratification of the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution in 1961 gave D.C. the same number of electors in the Electoral College as it would have if it were a state. Today Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton speaks for the District, but she is allowed a ballot only in House committees and has no vote on the floor of the House of Representatives where it really matters.

More people live in the District of Columbia than in the entire state of Wyoming. If residents of Wyoming did not have a vote in Congress, there would be a national outcry. Why doesn’t the country care as much about Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital, as it does about Cheyenne, the capital of Wyoming?

Before 1801, the people residing in the geographic area we now call “The District” lived in land located either in Maryland or Virginia. But when the District of Columbia replaced Philadelphia as the U.S. capital, those two states ceded a small portion of their land to the new entity, and a provision of the new Federal Constitution deprived the citizens who lived there of the right to vote, to have representation and to govern themselves. During the Civil War, the population of the city tripled and over the next century and a half, the Washington metropolitan area -– stretching from Baltimore, Md., to Richmond, Va. -– from the Chesapeake Bay to the Blue Ridge Mountains, grew to become one of nation’s most robust economies. Yet those who live in the heart of this region -– the citizens of Washington — are less than full citizens. It is difficult to argue for the democratic rights of people all over the world when a half a million people at home are not treated equally. Citizens of Puerto Rico at least get special tax relief! Over the generations, we have felt the powerful forces of argument for the rights of women, African-Americans, and Native Americans. Ever so slowly, the wheels of justice turned. We must hear the cry of those in D.C.

For more than 200 years, there have been discussions about possible statehood for D.C. and the establishment of voting rights and self-rule. The reasons why a positive outcome on these matters (either through congressional action or through ratification by the states of an amendment to the Constitution) has not been successful are complicated and convoluted, beginning with Constitutional language and ending with back-room politics. Depending on your point of view, the facts and the arguments run from erudite discussions of the meaning of original intent to the salty facts of political life. Here are several points to ponder: D.C. residents pay federal taxes at the same rate as do all other Americans. D.C. residents serve in the armed forces, defending and fighting for their country. A high percentage of members of the D.C. National Guard are currently deployed in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Residents of D.C. serve on juries to uphold federal laws and policies. The Congress of the United States must approve the budget of D.C. as well as all laws passed by the City Council. Some ask why the concept of “one man, one vote” should not apply to the residents of Washington. D.C. residents are primarily listed on the voting registries as Democrats. Some argue that Republicans on the Hill do not want to add votes to that side of the aisle. Presently, D.C. has no taxing power over commuters who work in Washington but live in neighboring Virginia and Maryland, and some say the Congressional delegations from those two states want to keep the status quo, not to mention the revenue it represents.

Do I feel disenfranchised? Do I want D.C. to gain statehood? Do I think there should be a national movement and call to action on this issue? Yes to all the above.

(Photo by Flickr user DoctorWho.)