Real People Live in Washington, DC

When people in the fifty states think of Washington, DC, they (you) think mostly of the three branches of the federal government, giving slight consideration to the people who live here, year-round, and call it home. For my first eighteen years I lived in Nashville, but that was long ago and I’ve now been a DC resident for nearly a half-century. At that time, DC home rule, allowing us to elect a mayor and council, was a new development, and along with the 23rd amendment to the constitution which in 1961 granted DC residents the right to vote for president, it seemed to herald a new era leading inexorably to greater autonomy and representation at the national level.

But that was the extent of the progress, and there has been none since then. We still have only one, non-voting, representative in the House of Representatives, and no representation whatever in the Senate. Yet Congress gets to review every bill passed by our council, and has final control over our local budget (that’s our local tax dollars, not federal money). This rankles, especially at a time such as this when, whether by design or by accident, the House is denying DC the ability to spend $1.1 billion in already-approved local spending (again, our, my, local tax dollars) in the current 2025 fiscal year. The mayor and council are preparing draconian cuts between now and the end of September, and it appears increasingly likely that the members of Congress, elected by everyone except us, are not going to correct this injustice.

Yes, I can hear some of you saying it: The fate of DC was decided in the US constitution, and no one forced you to live there. So just move if you don’t like it. (I’ve heard that one before.) To which I respond: There are many generations of native Washingtonians who don’t have the luxury to just sell and move away. Besides which, is hollowing out every residential neighborhood in DC a serious, or fair, answer to us Washingtonians who would simply like the same control over our own affairs and national-level representation that those in the fifty states enjoy?

More fundamentally, the US constitution, as ratified in 1788, does not - contrary to popular belief - define the boundaries of Washington, DC. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17 only calls for a federal district “not exceeding ten miles square” (no minimum size). Congress subsequently, in 1790, established the contours of the federal district with land from neighboring Maryland and Virginia, and – importantly – in 1846 it approved a reduction in its size, demonstrating that no constitutional amendment is required in order to reduce the size of the federal district. In fact, in 2021 the House approved a bill, H.R. 51, which would have reduced the federal district to an area around the National Mall and created a state, the Douglass Commonwealth, out of the residential areas, but the bill did not pass the Senate. Meanwhile, nearly 700,000 US citizens resident in DC, subject to the same taxes and laws as those in the fifty states, continue to see our neighborhoods used as a sandbox for Congress to play in - a blot on American democracy that is recognized worldwide.

I moved to DC as an idealistic graduate student out to change, and improve, the world, and I spent a productive career in USAID that ended, fortunately, before recent events forced its closure and emptied its employees onto the streets. As a federal employee, my daily commute took me through some of the toniest areas of DC, where politicians often maintain their second homes while heaping calumny on the city. However, for over a decade now, my second career in local advocacy has brought me increasingly into contact with the other seven wards of the city, giving me greater perspective on the breadth and diversity of my adopted home. I want to bring to you, my readers, a greater understanding of this real Washington, DC, and why you should see our fight for justice as fundamental to realizing the American dream.

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