[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 130 (Monday, October 7, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1771-E1772]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  AMERICAN LEGION'S DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 2002 HIGH SCHOOL ORATORICAL 
                                CONTEST

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. THOMAS M. BARRETT

                              of wisconsin

                    in the house of representatives

                        Monday, October 7, 2002

  Mr. BARRETT of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I would like to share with my 
colleagues a speech written and delivered by Nicholas ``Nick'' Barbash, 
a senior at School Without Walls, a District of Columbia Public Senior 
High School. Nick's family hails from my Congressional District in 
Wisconsin and both of his parents have been employed as professional 
staff in the House of Representatives. Nick's speech, entitled 
``Taxation Without Representation in the District of Columbia'' 
recently won First Place in the American Legion's District of Columbia 
2002 High School Oratorical Contest. I hope that you will enjoy Nick's 
speech which makes the case for DC voting rights from both a historical 
and moral perspective.
  In a time when young people are so often dismissed as passive and 
uninterested in relevant social issues, Nick's winning speech shows how 
a young person can make a difference in promoting a message to his 
fellow students and the general public. After placing first in the DC 
contest, Nick had the opportunity to deliver this speech to the 
National Finals of the American Legion's contest in Indianapolis, 
Indiana. According to Nick, other participants in the competition as 
well as their parents were unaware that DC residents had no full voting 
rights.
  Nick's argument will help enlighten those who are still unaware of 
the injustice residents of the District feel in grappling with their 
lack of representation.

        Taxation Without Representation in the Nation's Capital

             (Written and delivered by Nicholas M. Barbash)

       Ladies and gentleman, imagine for a moment that you are 
     touring Washington, D.C. Where would you go? You would 
     probably visit the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, 
     the U.S. Capitol, the White House, and I am sure you would 
     also visit the National Archives. You would go into the main 
     chamber, you would peer through the thick glass, and you 
     would see the actual documents on which our country was 
     founded: the Declaration of Independence and the 
     Constitution. And in the midst of your awe and reverence 
     stand the guards, who are hurrying you along in line and 
     making sure no harm comes to these documents.
       I bet you did not know that many of those guards, who 
     protect the Constitution, are not protected by the 
     Constitution. They are just a few of 500,000 residents of 
     Washington, D.C. who are lawful American citizens, with all 
     duties and obligations thereof, but are not represented in 
     the federal government. Congress has total control over 
     Washington, D.C.; it approves and can veto any actions by the 
     local government. However, D.C. has no representation in 
     Congress, no senators, no congressmen, and up until 1961, we 
     could not even vote for president.
       This situation has been going on in our nation's capital 
     for more than two hundred years now because of Article I, 
     Section 8, Clause 17 of the Constitution. This states that 
     Congress shall have power ``to exercise exclusive legislation 
     in all cases whatsoever over such district . . . as may . . . 
     become the seat of government of the United States.'' In 
     1787, when the Constitution was written, there was a good 
     reason for this clause. There were serious tensions between 
     Northern and Southern states, and the capital needed to be 
     independent so it would not be controlled by any of the 
     states.
       But times have changed, and this issue is now obsolete. And 
     the Founding Fathers, in their infinite wisdom and foresight, 
     knew that times would change, and that additions or 
     corrections to the Constitution would have to be made, as the 
     great Supreme Court Justice John Marshall said, ``to be 
     adapted to the various crises of human affairs.'' Well in 
     America, taxation without representation in the nation's 
     capital is a crisis of human affairs.
       After America gained independence but before our modem 
     Constitution was ratified, this country wasn't really the 
     United States. It was two groups of separate states, northern 
     and southern, with interests so different that they could 
     almost be considered separate nations. Now if these states 
     were to permanently remain one nation, the capital would have 
     to be on neutral ground, controlled by no state. So the 
     Framers wrote in the Constitution that the governing district 
     would be controlled by Congress. They did not imagine that 
     anyone besides members of Congress would ever actually be 
     living there, but ordinary people did begin to move in 
     starting in 1800. Sixty-five years later, Reconstruction 
     after the Civil War seemed like the perfect time to renew the 
     vows of democracy and to finally grant representation to 
     D.C., as the issue of northern or southern domination of the 
     capital had been put to rest with the end of the Civil War.
       However, Congress did almost the exact opposite in 1876, 
     when it arbitrarily abolished the local government and put 
     the city under the control of three presidentially appointed 
     commissioners. It took almost a century after that until the 
     offices of mayor, city council, and school board were finally 
     restored. However, in 1995, Congress stripped the local 
     government of all appreciable power and gave it to another 
     presidentially appointed body. Then in 1999, as soon as a 
     mayor they liked was elected, they gave it back.
       Ladies and gentlemen, not only are these actions contrary 
     to everything the Constitution stands for, but they are very 
     similar to the actions King George III committed that caused 
     America to declare independence in 1776. There are several 
     paragraphs in the Declaration of Independence in which Thomas 
     Jefferson lists these actions. Among them: ``For suspending 
     our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with 
     power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever,'' ``For 
     imposing taxes on us without our consent,'' ``For dissolving 
     representative houses repeatedly.'' The parallel is 
     unmistakable. America declared independence from England 
     because England was doing to them in 1776 what America is 
     doing to Washington, D.C. in 2002.
       Washington, D.C. did file a citizens lawsuit in 1998, which 
     made it all the way to the Supreme Court. The suit made the 
     claim that the Constitution guarantees states a republican 
     form of government but not D.C., thereby denying the 
     fourteenth amendment right of equal protection under the law. 
     The city is a federal enclave, and the argument was made that 
     some federal enclaves eventually became states, such as 
     Wyoming and Alaska, and others, such as military bases 
     abroad, allowed their residents to vote in other states. D.C. 
     was allowed neither of these, even though it is almost as 
     populous as Alaska, more populous than Wyoming, and more 
     prosperous than both of them. The Court rebutted this 
     argument on the grounds that the specific wording of the 
     fourteenth amendment is that ``no state shall deny . . . 
     equal protection of the laws,'' and of course D.C. is not a 
     state. It also recognized that though Article I, Section 8 
     obviously does not apply anymore, it is not the role of the 
     Court to update the Constitution for our times; that is the 
     role of Congress and of the state legislatures.
       That's the legal perspective on this issue. Here's the 
     moral perspective:
       D.C. residents have all the duties and obligations to the 
     government that go with being a U.S. citizen. We pay taxes to 
     the federal government, we serve in the military, we appear 
     for jury duty,--we have all the obligations. What we do not 
     have are the rights that go with those obligations: 
     representation in the federal government and unabridged self 
     government. These rights are guaranteed in the body of the 
     Constitution, and they are also guaranteed in the Preamble of 
     the Constitution: ``To secure the blessings of liberty. ``
       Like everyone else across the country, we pay federal 
     taxes. As a matter of fact, we pay higher taxes than 49 
     states. But unlike everyone else across the country, we can't 
     elect the people who decide how those tax dollars are spent. 
     In 1767, the Massachusetts lawyer James Otis declared that 
     ``taxation without representation is tyranny.'' Now a lot has 
     changed in this country since Otis' time. But two important 
     things are constant for all Americans: voting and taxes.
       In 1767, America had the taxes but not the vote. As the 
     country became independent and progressed through time, the 
     poor paid taxes and eventually got the vote; women paid taxes 
     and eventually got the vote; minorities paid taxes and 
     eventually got the vote; D.C. paid taxes but did not get the 
     vote. Our America may be very different from James Otis' 
     America, but taxation without representation is still 
     tyranny!
       D.C. lost more soldiers in the Vietnam War than 10 states 
     did. A D.C. marine regiment was recently sent to fight in 
     Afghanistan. They're fighting the war, but they are without a 
     say in whether or not they should be fighting the war. Even 
     thirty years ago, the Washington Star newspaper said about 
     this issue, ``What right have we to hurl epithets and 
     denunciations at dictatorships and totalitarian states in 
     other parts when an almost perfect example of irresponsible 
     forms of government is maintained by our own national 
     government in our own national capital?''
       Congress took power from the D.C. government in 1995 
     because it essentially felt that

[[Page E1772]]

     the mayor was corrupt. Well, mayors of other cities have been 
     corrupt. They were impeached, removed from office, and in 
     some cases, legal action was taken. But the power of their 
     office itself was not removed. Voters in their cities were 
     not denied their right to elect their leaders because an 
     outside body judged one of them to be corrupt. Things like 
     this do not happen anywhere in America except in D.C.
       Injustices in Washington, D.C. have gone on long enough. 
     The Founding Fathers had good reasons for denying D.C. 
     representation, but their reasons have outlived their time, 
     and it is time to do something about it. It is time to rise 
     above partisan differences and recognize that everyone living 
     in the capital city, Democrats, Republicans, and all others 
     are denied rights which are granted to all other Americans 
     under the Constitution. It is time to exercise Article V of 
     the Constitution and pass an amendment giving residents of 
     Washington, D.C. their lawful rights as American citizens.
       We do not dishonor the Founding Fathers when we say that 
     one of their ideas has outlived its time. On the contrary, we 
     honor their democratic ideals by extending liberty and 
     justice to all. And we paraphrase the words of a man whose 
     memorial you visited in Washington, D.C. that a government of 
     the people, by the people, and for the people must and shall 
     be restored to our capital city.
       Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.

       

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