Robert Schlesinger

Conservatives Starr, Dinh: Founders Would Approve Washington, D.C. Voting Rights

March 16, 2009 RSS Feed Print

By Robert Schlesinger, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

In case you missed it last week, a couple of high profile conservatives joined the voices supporting the latest push for American citizens living in Washington, D.C. to actually get the voting rights to which they are morally entitled.

Kenneth Starr (of Clinton impeachment fame) and Viet Dinh (of PATRIOT Act fame), wrote an op-ed in the Utah Standard-Examiner explaining that the proposal to give D.C. a voting House member is constitutional and that the founding fathers actually would approve of it.

They cite the "District Clause" of the Constitution, which gives Congress authority over the District of Columbia. And they take a big government conservative view of the clause:

This is perhaps the most complete, all-encompassing, no-exceptions language in the entire Constitution. It stemmed from the conviction of America's founders that the District should be beholden exclusively to Congress for any and all purposes.

This power is greater than the Utah Legislature has over Utah, greater than Congress has over legislation affecting all the states. It is truly majestic in scope. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has held that "Congress can provide for the general welfare of citizens within the District of Columbia by any and every act of legislation which it may deem conducive to that end."

(I wonder what would happen if this majestic congressional power were set into opposition against the virtually unlimited presidential war powers conservatives argued for during the imperial Bush presidency?)

I am actually not overly concerned about what the founding fathers would or would not approve of. They certainly wouldn't approve of a black president, for example. But I'll take allies on the D.C. voting rights issue where I can find them.

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Tags:
conservatives,
voting,
Washington, DC

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Singles Online of 1:36AM March 29, 2010

ALL American citizens have an inalienable (innate, inherent intrinsic) right to be allowed to grant or withold consent to the government that rules over them...whether they live in one of the fifty "states", or in the nation's capital, or live abroad, or live in one of the many territories. The arbitrary, artificial, anachronistic construct known as a "State" has no enduring priority giving it precedence over the fundamental bedrock governmental principle of known as "Consent of the Governed".

From the Virginia Declaration of Rights, June 1776

"VI That elections of members to serve as representatives of the people in assembly ought to be free; and that all men, having sufficient evidence of permanent common interest with, and attachment to, the community have the right of suffrage and cannot be taxed or deprived of their property for public uses without their own consent or that of their representatives so elected, nor bound by any law to which they have not, in like manner, assented, for the public good."

citizenw of DC 5:06PM March 17, 2009

It is true that Americans who have moved abroad after the age of 18 may register to vote in their last state of residence.

However, there are untold numbers of American citizens who are born abroad and who have not yet lived in the US. They must register for the draft and submit tax returns yet many states do not allow them to register to vote. In fact the state of Virginia's constitution expressly forbids anyone to register to vote who was not a resident of the state at age 18. A child born in Virgina who moves abroad before they may legally register to vote in Virginia would thus not be allowed to vote in a federal election unless they return to live in the US.

Voting, taxation, citizenship laws... America's disdain for its citizens living abroad is without doubt the reason America has 3.5 times fewer expats than the average of OECD nations. And this expat deficit is without a doubt partially responsable for our staggering trade deficit. Without Americans on the ground in other countries, our goods are certainly not going to sell themselves.

Eric Way 6:14AM March 17, 2009

Robert Schlesinger

Robert Schlesinger

Robert Schlesinger is managing editor for opinion at U.S. News and World Report, overseeing all opinion editorial content. He is the author of White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters. E-mail him at rschlesinger@usnews.com. Follow him on Twitter: @rschles.

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