A Territorial Government for DC? Part III

30 01 2012

Given the choice in 1973, the D. C. political establishment failed to advocate for a Governor-Legislative Assembly form of government.

From 1955 to 1970, Congress authorized D. C. political parties to put issues to advisory referendum votes in their primaries for local party offices and presidential delegate selection.  In 1960, the D. C. Republican Party put a proposition to a vote asking whether registered Republican voters favored a governor-legislative assembly form of government.  Over 80 per cent voted in favor.  The D. C. Democratic Party declined to put a similar proposition on their ballot.

In home rule testimony before the U. S. House D. C. Committee in 1963, the Chairman of the D. C. Republican Committee stated the longstanding position of local Republicans:  “We need a governor, not a mayor, to deal with the Governors of Maryland and Virginia.  The unique status of the District involves state functions.”  This form of government continued to draw strong support from Republican members of the D. C. Committee, who introduced and co-sponsored governor-legislative assembly bills.  The Committee’s Democrats, on the other hand, maintained their preference for mayor-council legislation.

When home rule legislation was under consideration by the U. S. House D. C. Committee in 1973, Chairman Charles Diggs (D-MI) requested that I assist in a quiet survey of members of the local political establishment to determine if they favored a mayor-council or governor-legislative assembly form of government.  (At the time, I was working as a Specialist in American Government at the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress.)  Chairman Diggs asked around as well.  Between us, we questioned over 50 local leaders.  Responses of both Republicans and Democrats tended to mirror their party’s position in Congress on the issue, with Republicans favoring the governor-legislative assembly and Democrats the mayor-council form of government.   Statehood Party leaders, on the other hand, held that they could only support the D. C. Statehood Admission Act, then also under consideration by the Committee.  One future Mayor of the City, Democrat Marion Berry, did express support for a governor as chief executive of a local home rule government.

Chairman Diggs was disappointed.  He thought Congress should seriously consider giving the District of Columbia a form of government similar to that of a state or territory, because elected officials would be exercising responsibilities and enacting laws on a state level, and that their titles should reflect that reality.  Unfortunately, the prevailing Democratic Party opinion on the issue sided heavily with those who favored a mayor and council for the proposed home rule government, insisting that the District was a city and that therefore a government headed by a mayor and council would be more appropriate.


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A Territorial Government for D.C.? (Part II)

28 01 2012

A Territorial Government for D.C.? (Part II).


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A Territorial Government for D.C.? (Part II)

28 01 2012

The Republican Party of the District of Columbia (established 1854) has historically supported the proposition that a territorial government would be best suited to achieve the local self-governing aspirations of the residents of the Nation’s Capital.   In 1874, Congress abolished the brief territorial government (1871-1874) of the post Civil War era.  In its 1876 platform, the D. C. Republican Party called for the restoration of a governor-headed territorial government here, and the Party continued to petition Congress and Presidents for such a government.

Finally, local Republicans found a sympathetic ear in President Theodore Roosevelt.  The President appointed a commission of national experts in public administration to study the matter and report recommendations.  In 1909, the report of the commission was sent to Congress, recommending that the District of Columbia be provided “a territorial form of government headed by a governor.”

Subsequent Republican presidents also advocated for a territorial government with a legislative assembly composed of 15 to 25 members.  President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent a draft territorial bill to Congress in 1957 that was introduced in the U.S. Senate by Republicans with Democratic co-sponsors.  Hearings were held at which D. C. Republican Party leaders testified in support.  The bill passed the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support.  Senator Prescott Bush (R-CT), father and grandfather of future Republican presidents, was a committed leader of this legislative effort.

Hearings were also held in the U. S. House.  D. C. Republican leaders again testified in favor, but the Southern Democrats dominating the District of Columbia Committee at that time declined to report the bill.

How and why Congress ultimately authorized an elected mayor-council form of government and not a governor-legislative assembly in1973 will be covered in Part III, to follow.


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Categories : D. C. Government, D. C. Statehood, DC Voting Rights, Territorial Government for D. C.

A Governor for DC? It’s a 200 Year-Old Idea! (Part 1 of 2)

26 01 2012

Soon after the federal government assumed residence here in 1800, Congress authorized a select committee to study and recommend a form of government for the District of Columbia.  That committee advised that Congress charter a governor-legislative territorial government.  However, local politicians in Alexandria and Georgetown, which had mayor-council charters dating from colonial days, did not want to give up their little fiefdoms.  These leaders appealed to their Senators and Representatives in Virginia and Maryland to keep the local charters, and Congress so legislated.

After the Civil War, D. C. Republican leaders, supported by the business community, began to petition Congress for a unified government with a strong executive as governor, supported by an elected legislative assembly.  These leaders believed that a centralized government was needed to initiate a comprehensive public works program to make D.C. a capital worthy of the Nation.  Streets were unpaved and a comprehensive water and sewage system was needed.

In 1871, Congress established the Territorial Government of the District of Columbia, headed by a governor serving with a legislative assembly.  By 1875, the Nation’s Capital was physically transformed.  However, Congress did not provide the anticipated appropriations necessary to fund this transformation, and local borrowing exceeded Congressional limits on the Territorial Government’s ability to raise the revenue to cover the costs.  The ensuing insolvency was used by Southern and Northern Democrats, by then a majority in Congress, as the justification to abolish the Territorial Government and replace it with three commissioners appointed by the President.


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D.C. Voters Should Send a Bipartisan Delegation to Congress

20 01 2012

D.C. Voters Should Send a Bipartisan Delegation to Congress.


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D.C. Voters Should Send a Bipartisan Delegation to Congress

20 01 2012

As a Republican candidate for U. S. Senator, I have pledged to be a full-time advocate on Capitol Hill for D. C.  residents.  No other candidate has made such a commitment.

I am retired now from a career on Capitol Hill during which I worked almost entirely on D. C. home rule and relations of our local government with Congress and the Executive Branch.  First at the Congressional Research Service (1970-1974), and then on the staff of the U. S. House Committee on the District of Columbia (1975-1992), I conducted extensive ground-breaking research on the complex 200-year political and economic relationship between local government, the President and Congress in the Nation’s Capitol.  The archival collection of books, documents, publications and original research that I assembled was rescued barely in time from the jaws of the dumpsters when the House District Committee was abolished in 1993.  I am currently working to catalog the archive in the carriage house over my Capitol Hill garage, where it has been stored all these years.  Needless to say, this is not an ideal situation for what I believe to be a unique historic treasure.

This archive would be of particular assistance in resolving the issue of how the Federal Government could equitably reimburse the D. C. Government for tax revenues denied or restricted and services rendered.  It is rich in material related to D. C. residents’ 200 year struggle to be represented by voting Members of Congress.  It could also serve as an office to meet with constituents and is only a ten minute walk from the U. S. Capitol.

Having a Republican in the D. C. congressional delegation would bring a needed dimension to D. C.’s efforts to advance representation, expand home rule, and achieve budget and legislative autonomy.  I can talk to Republican Members of Congress about the Party’s historic support for home rule and voting rights.  Two Republican Presidents, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon, successfully used the bully pulpit of the White House to rally the Nation, Congress and the States to give D. C. Residents the vote for President (in the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution), an elected Delegate to the U. S. House of Representatives, and a home rule government during their terms in office.

With the authority of an elected Senator from D.C., I can be an effective advocate for D. C. residents in speaking and negotiating with Republican members of Congress.  Democrats talking to Democrats has not moved the ball of voting rights forward.  It is time to send a bipartisan delegation to Capitol Hill.   Elect Rimensnyder U. S. Senator!


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New Columbia Statehood Might Require Constitutional Amendment

19 01 2012

Most proponents of statehood for New Columbia maintain that this can be accomplished by the passage of a statehood admission bill, requiring a simple majority vote in each chamber of Congress and the signature of the President.  However, the admission of New Columbia would require changing the size of the District of Columbia by creating a smaller seat of the federal government around the major federal buildings.  The remaining territory would become the State of New Columbia.  Making this change in size would likely require a constitutional amendment, according to a brief issued by Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in 1963.

In 1971, Rep. Fred Schwengel (R-Iowa) initiated a legislative procedure that included the constitutional amendment process to admit the District of Columbia as a state.  Two weeks later, Rep. Ronald V. Dellums (D-California) introduced a bill providing for admission by the standard legislative route.  Subsequent proponents of New Columbia statehood have followed the Dellums precedent, claiming that a constitutional amendment adjusting the size of the federal seat of governments is not required.  However, given Attorney General Kennedy’s brief, that position is questionable.


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Categories : D. C. Statehood, DC Voting Rights

D.C. Act 10-222 Would Exempt D.C. Residents from Paying Federal Income Tax Until Representation in Congress is Achieved

18 01 2012

In 1990, Rev. Jesse Jackson, D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, Mayoral Candidate Charlene Drew Jarvis, and several labor union leaders wrote D. C. Delegate Walter E. Fauntroy a letter.  They asked him to introduce legislation exempting D. C. residents from paying federal income taxes until statehood is achieved.  Fauntroy declined, claiming such an effort would be “a waste of my time.”  Rev. Jackson was subsequently elected one of D.C.’s first “U.S. Senators” under the Tennessee Plan for D. C. statehood.  Had Jackson stuck with his proposal and continued to press the Congress on the issue, the statehood cause might well have commanded more national media attention and legislative support.

In 1994, the D.C. Council adopted Act 10-222 which states:  “The Council requests that the Congress of the United States enact the following:  Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no D. C. resident shall be required to make federal income tax payments until such time as the District is granted full representation in both houses of Congress.”

This law has not been repealed.  Why then isn’t “independent” Democratic Council Member Michael Brown taking this policy message to Congress and the State legislatures?


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Do DC Voters Want Statehood?

17 01 2012

As “independent” Democratic DC Council Member Michael Brown begins to lobby state legislatures for D. C. Statehood, he should ponder this question:  How much D. C. voter support is there for statehood, given that the Congress has historically required overwhelming support of the residents before admitting a state to the Union?

Barely 60 per cent of those voting in the 1980 initiative authorized the election of a state constitutional drafting convention, and the draft constitution proposed in 1982 was approved by barely 51 per cent of those voting (if the 26,000 voters who left their ballots blank are counted).  This hardly demonstrated overwhelming support.  Overwhelming local support for statehood is still not in evidence.

Alaska and Hawaii, for example, supported statehood in votes of 80 per cent and higher (95 per cent in Hawaii) of those voting.  In Hawaii, the vote was 18 to 1 in favor of statehood.  In contrast, the residents of Puerto Rico in votes and polls have usually divided about evenly on statehood, with half for and half against.  This is why Congress has never seriously considered statehood for Puerto Rico, and why it is unlikely to consider statehood for the District without a much greater show of support than the public has given so far.


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Categories : DC Voting Rights


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