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| Greens Reject Davis Plan for Limited Representation in Congress. |
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THE D.C. STATEHOOD GREEN PARTY The D.C. Statehood Green Party warns that the debate between Del. Norton and Rep. Davis distracts from the goal of real democracy under statehood for the District of Columbia. WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Members of the D.C. Statehood Green Party rejected a proposal from Rep. Tom Davis (R.-Va.) to grant the District of Columbia a vote by making D.C., in effect, a congressional district of Maryland. "Rep. Davis's plan does nothing to advance democracy for the citizens of Washington, D.C.," said Gail Dixon, longtime party activist and former D.C. Board of Education member. "It's a major step towards retrocession, which most District residents don't want. It also leaves us under the control of Congress. We certainly don't trust Rep. Davis -- whenever we see diluted measures like this from congressional Republicans, purportedly for our benefit, we suspect other motives and deals and the danger that policies will be forced on us that we don't want." "Like all proposals to grant D.C. some kind of representation without affording self-governance, the Davis plan leaves D.C. vulnerable to Congress's control over legislation and finances, Congress's veto power of citizens' ballot initiatives, and arbitrary rescission of rights -- including voting seats in Congress," continued Dixon. "The only way to secure democratic rights, including congressional representation, and to preserve them from Congress's caprices, repeats of the Revitalization Act, and imposed laboratory experiments like school vouchers is to achieve statehood." (Under the 1997 D.C. Revitalization Act, Congress and President Clinton transferred most local government functions from D.C.'s elected officials to an appointed Financial Control Board.) Statehood Greens warned that the introduction of the Davis proposal will steer the public's attention away from the movement for statehood for the majority African American District, and turn it into narrow debate over how and whether D.C. will get one, two, or three voting seats in Congress. "As the media report it, this is a conflict between [D.C.'s nonvoting delegate] Eleanor Holmes Norton and the voting rights advocates on one side, and Rep. Davis on the other," said Zoe Mitchell, Ward One Representative on the Statehood Green Party's steering committee. "In other words, a conflict between Democracy Lite and Retrocession Lite. We call on District residents to reject such a choice." "The real conflict is between the demand for full democratic self-determination, which would allow D.C. residents to declare the District a state, and the idea that people who call D.C. home do not deserve or are not ready for full citizenship and democracy. We in the D.C. Statehood Green Party insist that statehood is the only acceptable plan. Only under statehood would our voting seats be safe from congressional rescission or constitutional challenge by the courts, and our laws safe from Congress's veto power." The D.C. Statehood Green Party claims that D.C. can achieve statehood through an act of Congress (requiring a simple majority, easier than winning voting seats through a constitutional amendment) that altered the borders of the constitutionally mandated federal enclave to encompass only federal properties: the White House, Capitol, Mall, etc. D.C. voters would then decide the District's political status, whether statehood, retrocession to another state, or some other option. Attorney George S. LaRoche, who died on ay 31, argued unsuccessfully for such a plan before a District Court and the U.S. Supreme Court (the '20 Citizens' lawsuit, Adams v. Clinton, renamed Adams v. Bush), but since the judges declined to comment on LaRoche's arguments, the door remains open for a future court challenge. According to a 1980 nonbinding referendum and more recent polls, most D.C. residents favor statehood. MORE INFORMATION |
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