Rally This Monday for DC Voting Rights

UPDATE: It looks like the rally went off well, despite the abnormal weather. It was the largest rally for DC voting rights. The people are speaking, Congress. Will you listen? Or like King George III will you turn a dear imperious ear?


An important event this Monday in DC:

The Rally in support of legislation giving DC citizens a VOTING representative in the US Congress will begin at Freedom Plaza (14th & Penn. Ave. ) at 2:30 pm THIS MONDAY. We will march down Penn to the Capitol Reflecting Pool for a rally with speakers beginning at 4 p.m. Without an actual vote in Congress, ALL of the rights gays now enjoy in DC are in jeopardy, as illustrated by the attempt of some in Congress to tell us what gun legislation we should have.

In case you don't know, the people of DC pay taxes but have no voting rights in Congress. Yet Congress can dictate the laws for DC, even overturn legislation enacted by our popularly elected city council and mayor.

I have yet to hear a rational argument against DC statehood. John at Average Gay Joe (who supports DC voting rights but not statehood) fears making DC a state would give it undue influence over the federal government:

The States do still have enough power that one lucky enough to host the Federal City would have undue influence that the others would not..

But how? Has proximity to DC given Virginia and Maryland undue influence over federal largess? West Virginia, which shares no borders with DC is one of the states that gets the most pork. And distance seemed no barrier to Alaska getting $223 million for its "Bridge to Nowhere."

The proximity argument may have made sense in the late 1700s when great distances and lack of instant communication may have given states with proximity to the national capital a leg up. But we have airplanes now. And email. And cell phones. And video conferencing.

Yesterday I wrote a check made out to the U.S. Treasury to pay my taxes. As a self-employed person, it was a huge chunk. I not only have no say in how that money is spent but people elected by other people who don't live here, some of whom in fact live as much as 7,000 miles away, can dictate laws under which I have to live.

It's wrong. Americans are dying to bring a little democracy in a place called Iraq. We could use a bit more of it in a place called America.

If you support DC statehood, or even just DC voting rights, and you don't live in DC, contact your Congressperson. Let them know.

More on the effort here.

DC School's Bookkeeping Gets an "F"

From today's WashPo:

An independent audit of the D.C. government has found serious problems with the public school system's financial controls, alarming District officials who say that the city's fiscal health could be at risk if the lapses are not corrected.

Not good news for defenders of the status quo who oppose Mayor Fenty's efforts to take mayoral control over the schools precisely because of the continual mismanagement of the system's current management.

And what of the response of the school system? A serious avowal to fix the problem? Naw, it's the typical dodge knowledge and responsibility game, Buried at the end of the Post story:

But the biggest fireworks came when Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), head of the council's Finance and Revenue Committee, demanded that Janey and Bobb respond to the auditors' conclusions. Evans said the auditors told him that the school system was the worst department to deal with.

"The cooperation was not there," said Evans, who supports Fenty's plan. "They could barely audit your system."

Janey professed not to know about the auditors' concerns. "They have not come to me and given me the same conclusion," Janey said. "I heard differently."

This is why I'm supporting the Mayor on this one.