Chairman Linda W. Cropp
A PROPOSED RESOLUTION IN THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
To support the immediate replacement of the "Celebrate
and Discover" slogan on newly issued District of Columbia license plates with
"Taxation Without Representation".
RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, That
this resolution may be cited as the "Sense of the Council in Support of New License
Plate Slogan Resolution of 2000".
Sec. 2. The Council finds that:
(1) The District of Columbia is the only national capital
amongst the world’s representative democracies whose residents are denied voting
representation in the national legislature.
(2) Although the Constitution of the United States (Article I,
section 8, clause 17) authorizes the establishment of a national capital district over
which "Congress shall have the power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases
whatsoever", nothing in its terms or in the rationale offered for this provision
suggests that the right to voting representation in the Congress should be withheld from
those citizens who happen to reside within the boundaries of the national capital.
(3) The core principle of a democracy — that the government
derives its powers from the consent of the governed — is violated when citizens do not
have voting representation in the bodies that make their laws.
(4) Moreover, the fundamental Constitutional rights of one
person-one vote and equal protection under the law are each violated by the District’s
lack of voting representation in the House and the lack of any representation in the
Senate.
(5) The denial of Congressional voting representation for
District residents is even more heinous when coupled with the fact that Congress chooses
to exercise ultimate decision-making over all local legislative and budgetary matters
affecting District residents. Thus, District residents are not only locked out of their
national legislature but also out of what is in a structural sense their state
legislature. This shameful lack of democracy is further compounded by the transfer of
certain state-like functions from the District government to the Federal government.
(6) Because District residents bear all of the burdens of
citizenship, including federal taxation in the amount of nearly $2 billion annually —
higher federal taxes than eight other states, and including wartime participation,
District residents are entitled to full representation in Congress, the same as all other
U.S. citizens.
(7) Taxation without representation led the American colonies
in 1776 to declare their independence from Britain. This lofty principle on which our
nation was founded requires that District of Columbia residents in the .year 2000 no
longer be treated-as second-class citizens.
Sec. 3. As part of a nationwide effort to educate citizens of
the United States about the denial of fundamental democratic rights to American citizens
who reside in the nation’s capital, the Council calls upon the Mayor to take immediate
action to replace the "Celebrate and Discover" slogan on newly issued District
of Columbia license plates on motor vehicles with a slogan that instead reads
"Taxation Without Representation".
Sec. 4. This resolution shall take effect immediately.