9-19-11
Corporate America has $2 trillion in their checking account. War talk continues with the politicians taking sides. John Boehner said it was as if he and the President were from 2 different planets and couldn't understand each other. Why not think of America as 2 planets orbiting the same sun? Boehner's planet, Planet B is home to the people who have the most money. Planet O, represented by Obama, is inhabited by all the people who work for the people of Planet B. More people on Planet O need work and everybody needs a path to prosperity. There are plenty of poor, middle class and upper middle class people on Planet O who are content with what they have, but there are more who want more and everybody on Planet O wants corporate america to start writing some checks for wages, investments in infrastructure, education and all the things Planet O needs to be able to be good servants to the people of Planet B.
Fall of 2011
Corporate America seems to be at war with uncorporate america, but I know that can't be. There has got to be a way the executives and managers can figure out a way to manufacture the things we need and sell things to ourselves so that they can make a profit to share with their shareholders and we can make a living wage to keep landlords and mortgage lenders in business. I know there has got to be a way, but I sure don't know what that way is.
Any ideas? Contact us.
Spring and Summer of 2011: Why isn't DC a state?
My home state is New York because I was raised there and everyone in this picture I know from Westchester County and Long Island. The corporations who paid my father for his services are headquartered in NYC and so I think of NYC as my home city.
My adult life has been in the District of Columbia, City of Washington. The diamond-shaped piece of land that was carved out of Virginia and Maryland and incorporated as Washington, DC after our forefathers won their war of independence from the King of England. I have no living or dead relatives in the District. I came here as a settler in 1992 and have been renting an apartment from a couple who own 6 10-unit apartment buildings and 5 townhouses throughout the city. This federal city continues to function as the home of the White House, the US Capitol, the US Supreme Court, international embassies, the Smithsonian museums, office buildings for the 4 branches of the federal government (I include the media), and etc. I have not purchased a car because it is easy to get around the city on the metrorail and bus system, and it's usually pretty easy to get a cab on Capitol Hill, the place where I have put down my roots and intend to spend the rest of my life (my domicile).
Since 1992 I have been puzzled by the strange situation I am in politically. As a resident of the District of Columbia I don't have a Senator, so even though it's an easy walk to the Senate Chamber and the Senate Office buildings (Russell, Dirkson, and Hart) I have no Senator to talk to, write to, email to or contact on a web page. I thought this was strange during the Clinton administration, during the Bush administration, and now during the Obama administration. I wanted a Senator who could vote for the Recovery Act, for the Affordable Care Act, and for the WallStreet reforms, whatever they were called. But I did not and still don't have a Senator! I pay federal income tax, but I'm not represented in the Senate. Isn't that strange?
I think Eleanor Holmes Norton has been my Representative in the House of Representatives for as long as I've been living down the street. I went to her town hall meeting last spring and got up and proposed that instead of getting mired in all these complicated power plays with the insurance companies, why don't we just have Medicare for everybody. She said that she would like to see that happen, but she didn't think it would get through the Senate. There I was again with a proposal, but no Senator to propose it to!
I was very happy to see all the bills pass the House and Senate right up to the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, even though my Representative in the House wasn't able to cast her vote in favor of the bills that ultimately were signed into law by President Obama. Now the 112th Congress is underway and I spent all day yesterday watching C-SPAN. I was astonished and very disappointed to see the way Representative Norton was treated on the floor of the House.
Our representative in the House of Representatives is not a Representative because the District of Columbia is not a state. This is the same reason we don't have a Senator: The District of Columbia, where the whole country sends Representatives and Senators to make laws for them - is not a state. Our representative is a delegate, like the represenatives of territories outside the continental US like Guam and Puerto Rico.
The first vote was called by Eleanor Holmes Norton, who asked the other representatives to slide one particular rule out from the House Rules package that was going to be voted on later in the day (HR 5). She requested separate consideration of the rule that would take away the delegates' right to vote in or preside over the committee of the whole.
As I understand what happened, they basically blew her off, and voted on the rules package as it was, including the rule that took away the delegates right to vote in or preside over the committee of the whole. HR 5 passed that afternoon and Eleanor Holmes Norton can't vote on anything now: not in the Committee of the Whole and not on the floor of the House when bills are being voted on. That leaves me and all the other residents of DC without any voting representative in the Senate or the House of Representatives. Because DC is not a state.
The history is as follows: Eleanor Holmes Norton was given the right to vote in the Committee of the Whole by the 103rd Congress when a majority of the Representatives were Democrats. The delegates have never had the right to vote on the House floor. The delegates lost the right to vote in the Committee of the Whole in 1995 when Republicans won the majority of the seats in the House. In 2007 the delegates got the right to vote in the Committee of the Whole back again when the majority of House members were Democrats. Yesterday, the delegates lost their right to vote again when a Republican majority gaveled in the 112th Congress.
My question is this: If I reside in a place for 18 years, pay my rent and bills, obey the laws of the jurisdiction, pay taxes to the local/state and federal government, contribute to my community and vote, shouldn't I be able to vote for a Senator and a member of the House of Representatives?
The answer is no. Because that right is reserved for residents of a state, and DC is not a state.
I think it's about time the Senate and the House of Representatives pass a bill or an amendment to the Constitution or whatever they need to do that the President can sign that declares the District of Columbia to be a state, and the City of Washington (to be defined) to be the capitol of that state. If this was easy it would have been done a long time ago, and Eleanor Holmes Norton and others have been trying for years to get DC Statehood.
It's taken me 18 years to finally see the pattern: The Democratic party wants the residents of DC to have voting representatives in Congress and the Republican party doesn't. It seems to me that the only people who can resolve the question of DC statehood is the US Supreme Court. Their role is to decide when Congress does something that violates people's individual rights, they've got to stop.
In 2011 the US Supreme Court will be deciding whether the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate to buy health insurance violates the US Constitution. I think this year would be a good time for the residents of DC to ask the Supreme Court to decide if depriving the residents of DC the right to elect a voting Senator and Representative of the House of Representatives denies us equal protection of the law, under the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution.
Interesting: The "no state shall" Fourteenth Amendment was enacted after the Civil War when Congress was trying to protect newly emancipated slaves from their former owners who really didn't want to let them go. White America was adjusting to life without free labor and Black America was looking for a place to put down roots and get paid for their labor. Many emancipated slaves put down roots in the District of Columbia and several generations later the population of DC is about 75% African American. I think it's about time the residents of DC receive equal protection of the law when it comes to being a citizen of a state and a citizen of these United States.
The pertinent part of the 14th Amendment states, "No state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
The Supreme Court used this "equal protection clause" to end the male-only admissions policy at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in 1996. Women had been applying to VMI for years, and they were denied admission only because they were women no matter what their talents and qualifications. After this decision, women have received equal protection of their state colleges and universities' admissions policies, protection that is equal to the protection given to men.
I'm thinking we could argue that the policies of all 50 states which send representatives to Congress in DC - capriciously give and take away the DC delegate's right to vote, thereby depriving all DC residents of equal protection of the law. I'm going to start my research there and get back to you tomorrow.
Just hit "contact us" and tell me what you know and think.