Obama, Congress to Constitution: Drop Dead
Congress appears poised, and President Barack Obama to sign, a law giving District of Columbia delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton a vote in the House. One notable, and foolish, Republican also supports this effort: Sen. Orrin Hatch. Hatch supports the move because it would give Utah an extra representative -- for two years. After that, the extra representative could come from any state in the union based upon the 2010 census.
The problem with this law is that it is blatantly unconstitutional. Representatives come from the states -- not the district of the federal city.
The solution to the problem of residents of Washington, D.C., suffering from "Taxation without Representation" is for all residential areas of the capital to be returned to the state from whence they came -- Maryland.
Any other effort to give D.C. a vote in Congress, absent a constitutional amendment, is unconstitutional.
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"But, after all, what does it signify that men should have a written constitution, containing unequivocal provisions and limitations? The legislative lion will not be entangled in the meshes of a logical net. The legislature will always make the power which it wishes to exercise, unless it be so organized as to contain within itself the sufficient check. Attempts to restrain it from outrage, by other means, will only render it more outrageous. The idea of binding legislators by oaths is puerile. Having sworn to exercise the powers granted, according to their true intent and meaning, they will, when they feel a desire to go farther, avoid the shame, if not the guilt, of perjury, by swearing the true intent and meaning to be, according to their comprehension, that which suits their purpose." (Gouvernour Morris, December 22, 1814)