[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 39 (Thursday, March 5, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H3028]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               VOTING RIGHTS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

  (Mr. TONKO asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. TONKO. Two and a third centuries ago, before our United States 
Capitol had even been imagined, the Founders were asking a question we 
hear in the District of Columbia to this day, and that is, how can we 
cut out a city from its home State and put it under the direct rule of 
Congress without violating the principles that the Revolutionary War 
fought to secure?
  James Madison argued that there was only one way around that 
hypocrisy, ``to provide for the rights and the consent of the citizens 
inhabiting it.'' And further, its people ``will have had their voice in 
the election of the government which is to exercise authority over 
them.''
  That was the intent of our Founders. Those were the conditions for 
this District to exist, but they have not been upheld. 233 years later, 
of all the world's democracies, there is only one national capital 
without full voting rights. Washington, D.C., this city full of 
monuments to democracy, holds that distinction. At last, that's on the 
verge of changing.
  Soon this House will vote on a bill to give the District of Columbia 
a voting Member of the House of Representatives. I urge my colleagues 
in this Chamber to finally give the people of Washington, D.C. a vote 
in this great body.

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