Entangled Alliances

Washington D.C. has long had a bizarre constitutional status.  A “district” largely carved out of territory ceded by Maryland in 1790, it has had little control over its own destiny.  Congress still retains most powers that a Governor would normally enjoy, which is why you see bizarre school voucher experiments (and today’s gun law tactics) in a city where 90% of residents vote for the Democratic candidate for Mayor, President or (non-voting) Congressional representative (currently the inestimable Eleanor Holmes Norton).

photo credit: mindgutter

Non-voting representative no more, however.  Very soon, the District of Columbia will no longer complain of ‘taxation without representation’.  The long-awaited follow-up to the 23rd Amendment (1961) which gave Washingtonians votes for President may now have belatedly arrived.  Yesterday, the Senate voted 61-37 for a D.C. voting rights bill, expected to be quickly followed by the House and signed by President Obama, which will extend voting rights to the legislature.  There are, of course, constitutional issues at play when considering the notion of full congressional representation for D.C.  The Bill is likely to face legal challenges, which will probably make it all the way to the Supreme Court (perhaps, one speculates, finally giving the Supremes a chance to make up for Bush v Gore).

For Chris Bowers, that the constitutional status of the District is back on the agenda is a signal that a national conversation should be opened about the statuses of other anachronistic US territories, especially Puerto Rico, which, as we were reminded of at the time of Hillary Clinton’s primary victory in the island last June, remains largely a colonial entity.  The US should indeed be wary of the potential for unrest during the recession.  In an escalating crisis, Europe’s biggest remaining colonial power, France, is being reminded of the awkward relationship of modern colonialism and economic crisis in its Caribbean territories, Martinique and Guadeloupe.  American hypocrisy over D.C., Puerto Rico and the rest of its overseas territories is rarely something that is openly discussed, but yesterday’s Senate vote is an encouraging sign that Obama’s America is beginning to live up to Bobby Kennedy’s call of “really mean[ing] it when we say all men are created free and equal before the law.”