Future Amendment – D.C. Representation

Having read and processed all the documents upon which our Constitution was built as well the Constitution itself and each existing amendment along with other significant expressions of American political thought through our history I think I have established a fairly solid foundation for my own political thinking that can be explored by anyone who might be curious about where I stand on fundamental issues of our government. Now I would like to venture into the future by exploring four amendments that I believe we ought to make to our Constitution.

These are not intended to be presented in any particular order (such as the order of importance in my mind) which is why I will not suggest any number for any of them. In fact, the first one I will present here was chosen only because I have already exposed my position on the issue multiple times already. (None of the four are new topics for my writing.)

The founders of our nation made a conscious decision to keep the federal government free from any particular local interest by stipulating that Congress should have complete control over the capital city and that the city should be independent of any state. They certainly did not expect hundreds of thousands of people to have no voice in the government that led them, nor did they intend for the federal government to be as powerful and controlling as the one we have built up. I have been a vocal opponent of the push to expand the house by two seats and give one of those seats to Washington D.C. but that is because the bill contradicts the current Constitution and rather than addressing the real issue in accordance to our legal foundation it ignores our fundamental law with a convenient but half-baked political compromise.

The proper solution to this situation is to pass an amendment that would allow Washington D.C. the legitimate voting representation in the House that their population warrants. I believe that the amendment should be worded so that it does not apply exclusively to Washington D.C.. Some might argue that not all our territories should have a voting representative in Congress but it seems only right than any territory in which residents pay the same federal taxes as the residents of the several states should have voting representation in the House of Representatives. Under that restriction Washington D.C. qualifies and anytime another territory has a legitimate claim about “taxation without representation” (the mantra that supporters of voting rights for D.C. have adopted) the problem would already be constitutionally solved rather than having to patch each leak in the boat that we may encounter in the future.