Posted on 03/06/2011 6:17:47 AM PST by Kaslin
WASHINGTON – When Democrat Paul Strauss walks into the John A. Wilson Building a little more than a block from the White House, the door leading to his office is marked “Senator.”
The young intern answering his phone cheerfully greets callers with, “Senator Strauss’s office.” And if he has to send a letter, he has official U.S. Senate stationary embossed with a gold eagle.
Yet the perks for this obscure Washington political asterisk end there.
Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of Sen. Strauss. Even some people who live here and can vote for him have no idea he exists.
Strauss and Michael Brown are “shadow” senators representing the District of Columbia, one of three members of the district’s shadow delegation – along with shadow representative Mike Panetta –who are elected by D.C. voters.
“Basically the voters can vote for me, but I can’t vote for them,” Strauss said. “My job is to win statehood for the district.”
Doesn’t that make him essentially a lobbyist?
“Not so,” Strauss said. “Lobbyists are paid to do what I do for free. Just like my wife is not paid to do some things for me that I might have to pay for somewhere else.”
None of these shadow guys should be confused with D.C.’s delegate-at-large, Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who is employed by the federal government, can vote and serve on a committee, but cannot vote on any passage of legislation.
Strauss said the district has been lobbying for statehood since 1801. That would give representation in Congress to the 600,000 voters living there.
The district was created to serve as the federal government’s seat, thanks to Philadelphia’s refusal to provide protection to the Continental Congress.
A site near Harrisburg, Pa., was considered first but, instead, the district was carved from Maryland and Virginia. Virginia’s portion later voted to return to that state.
Although Congress controls the district, lawmakers established a limited form of home rule through a locally elected government. Like other U.S. territories and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, it has a non-voting House delegate.
Strauss hints that past attempts to make the district a state were blindsided by racism, since its populace was and is predominantly black.
He admits the last two years – with a liberal black president and an overwhelming majority of Democrats in Congress – were the best shot at achieving statehood.
“It sure should have been,” Strauss grumbled. “We lost an opportunity to accomplish what was essentially our moment. Somehow we thought if we asked for less democracy we would get more. We ended up creating more diversion than solutions.”
Shadow senators are nothing new. The practice dates back to 1796 when Tennessee, then a territory, sent elected “shadow senators” to lobby for statehood.
The push for D.C. statehood is both passionate and gimmicky. Right now, a city measure is underway to ceremonially rename the country’s most celebrated street, Pennsylvania Avenue, to bring attention to it.
“We are thinking something like, “Give DC Statehood Avenue,” to be used as a ceremonial street sign that could be placed under existing signs for Pennsylvania Avenue,” Strauss said.
The idea underscores the mixed message: Are they serious or chasing windmills?
Experts disagree on whether the district should achieve statehood. U.S. Senate historian Donald Ritchie said, “You’d think a democracy would be embarrassed to have a half-million of its citizens disenfranchised.”
Ritchie’s argument is that, by setting aside a capital district, the authors of the Constitution clearly expected the area to have a population.
Historian Jeff Brauer disagrees: “From the Framers’ viewpoint, the idea was the capital city would be a federal district … (not) part of any state, and a district that would not be a state itself.”
The Framers, he says, feared that if the capital city was within a state, or if its citizens had full representation as a state, it and they would have too much access to federal power.
“They saw it as more of a place of transition, not of permanence … especially since the ideal was a citizen government with a high turnover rate,” Brauer says.
The federal government also was expected to play a relatively small role back then. Therefore, a huge bureaucracy with lots of public workers living in the district was not anticipated.
So the district’s original purpose was to be the federal government’s seat – and not much more.
As for Strauss, he said his job is not without its advantages: “I do get to walk in parades.”
I don’t think it is fair that DC residents pay federal taxes but do not get full federal representation. I also don’t think it is fair that the Democrat party gets 3 unearned electoral votes. To resolve this, I’d repeal the 23rd amendment and replace it with something that disallows any federal taxation imposed on DC residents, in exchanges for being governed like a US territory.
I live in maryland, I pay Federal tax’s and get to watch as Democrats only get elected to the House and the Senate, I don’t get any Representation either.
Washington DC is not a State. It is a federal Enclave. If they don’t like it they can move and vote Democrat in Maryland, like the rest of them that moved here and run PG County.
We already have 2 crime-ridden $#!+hole ghettos in this state... do we really deserve a 3rd? :)
It is logical therefore it is not going to happen.
I feel your pain. I really do. But the last thing this state needs is even more parasites living in potentially retroceded areas of DC returned to MD.
I understand how you feel, but consider this: If D.C. gets seats in the Senate, and Maryland goes on as it does, there would be four Democratic senators. If D.C. votes for Maryland Senate seats, it would be only two Democratic senators. Furthermore, it would pit the Baltimore machine against the D.C. machine against the P.G./Montgomery machine... and we can snipe from the sides, shooting the wounded.
The solution to the problem is to hand over the populated part of the district to MD and VA and shrink federal control to Washington buildings and installations.
Congress has the constitutional power to do this for the federal district. No separate congressional representation is necessary for DC’s inhabitants.
Sounds like a politician, I bet his wife is thrilled with that comment.
NO statehood for D.C., it is and should remain a federal district where democratically elected representatives govern the republic.
DC cannot be a state. It would violate a host of federal and state conflict of interest issues.
It seems that eternal racist lesbo parasite Eleanor Holmes Norton gets a Federal paycheck for being the shadow Rep from DC. This particular shadow Senator clown gets no such money so as far as I’m concerned he can go knock himself out as far as DC statehood
Washintoon DC is getting more white professional gay federal drone and lobbyist every year. Blacks are being pushed out. This white gentrification of DC makes statehood more likely (unfortunately)
If DC becomes a state, it should change its name to Detroit.
Never give D.C. a state, sorry, they choose to live there.
“Washintoon DC is getting more white professional gay federal drone and lobbyist every year. Blacks are being pushed out...”
....good point!....it’ll be interesting to see how it all shakes out...for so many years the whole ‘Statehood for DC’ issue was caught up in the civil rights movement because DC was overwhelmingly black... and of course, a lot of Dems got behind behind the idea hoping to get 2 black Dem senators in perpetuity...now that the population shift is going white, attitudes might change.
Stonewalls, who as a child remembers when DC was a clean, safe beautiful city....I miss the old D.C.
Yup. It’ll never pass a GOP House. Republicans have no interest in voting to create what would essentially be four safe Democratic lifetime seats. That’s why its never going to fly, even if you leave politics out of the equation, it makes no sense to give federal status to one city.
Russia has two. And the only country that gives its federal district legislative representation is Mexico.
But neither is a model for us.
Solve it this way. Draw a line through the District along the former boundaries of Maryland and Virginia when those states gave the land to form the District. Allow the people living in the District on the Maryland side to vote for Maryland Senators and the Maryland Congressperson whose district will encompass the Maryland side of the District. Same for the Virginia side. Now they have representation in Congress and the Senate.
Believe it or not, it is Maryland’s congressional delegation that has prevented DC statehood. The reason is very simple—were DC ever to become the “State of New Columbia” (which is the name they put in their state constitution which they have sent to Congress to ratify), the first thing they would do is to slap a commuter income tax on those of us who live in MD and work in DC—there is such a tax on non-professional businesses (such as car washes, printing presses, etc.) called the “unincorporated franchise tax” which is something like 10.7% of a business’ gross revenues.
The Founders created the federal district so that the federal government would not meet under the jurisdiction of any particular state. It would be in neutral territory. With so many federal agencies now located outside the district and across the country, it seems that this is no longer a concern.
I agree that the District of Columbia should be reduced to encompass the Federal Triangle and nothing more. All persons who live there, except persons holding Constitutional offices, would become citizens of Maryland.
“No separate congressional representation is necessary for DC’s inhabitants.”
Nor none provided for under the constitution it seems to me. The district is not a State. If Congress declines to exercize their exclusive power over it (or parts of it), the territory should revert back to the States that ceeded it in the first place. People who live there who want a proper state’s representation should move.
“The Congress shall have Power...To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States...”
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