03/26/2025
The Congress has jurisdiction over the District of Columbia. [If you were raised in the District of Columbia, you will have learned this in your DC History class.] It means that we have a shadow senator and two shadow “representatives” of the House but neither of them have the right to vote in either congressional body. In essence, DC residents have no federal representation. Despite this, we pay plenty of federal taxes.
Even if you learned your American History outside of the District, you probably remember that “no taxation without representation” was a key rallying cry during the lead-up to the American Revolution. Back then, folks willing to fight a tyrannical regime thought it was unjust to impose taxes on citizens without giving them a voice in the legislative body that determines how taxes would be levied. It’s still unjust.
It’s been some time since many of us had any kind of history class [decades for me]. I don’t know why the US Constitution was set up to screw over the citizens of the capital city but that’s where we are and have been since the nation’s founding. But let’s not digress.
Because Congress has jurisdiction over the District of Columbia, the argument can be made that every DC resident is a constituent of every senator and representative that does have a vote. It is perfectly legitimate for each and every DC resident to go to the congressional office buildings, knock on the doors of the elected officials there and say, “I didn’t vote for you. You do not represent me. You have no right to tell DC’s city council and mayor—the people who do represent me—how to spend the taxes that I pay to the District of Columbia.”
On the other hand, we may not be prepared to do a repeat of the Revolutionary War. A more strategic option might be to ask them to pass the DC Local Funds Act. Below is a plan of attack put together by Free DC. We can get some control over our tax dollars without firing a single musket.
https://freedcproject.org/news/encourage-representatives-to-pass-the-dc-local-funds-act
P.S. For those of you who aren’t from DC; this will cost you zero dollars and zero cents. The Congressional Budget Office said as much.
