Missouri U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill is a co-sponsor of the D.C. Voting Rights Compromise that would give D.C. a voting member of the U.S. House, in exchange for giving Utah one additional Congressional seat.
Once again, aside from the racial aspects of this all, I have a big Constitutional problem with the concept of giving D.C. such “voting rights,” either for President (which has been done) or for the House and/or Senate. The District of Columbia is a possession of the Federal government for a national capital, whereas the President, and House and Senate members are elected by people of the several states. Washington, D.C. is not a state, and should not be, so they shouldn’t get voting members of Congress.
However, David Wheeler has a good compromise, and one that would not fundamentally alter the body politic of the House and Senate too much. His solution is to count Washington, D.C. residents as part of Maryland’s population for Congressional apportionment, and allow them to vote in Maryland U.S. Senate elections. Even without D.C., Maryland will forever send two Democrats to the Senate and mostly Democrats to the House, and just adding D.C’s mostly black voters to that mix won’t make things any worse.
Demographically, Washington, D.C. itself and D.C.’s Maryland suburbs are fairly similar.
