Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Let American "public diplomacy" publicize the below to the world, as to stress another indication of USA "values" ...


Washingtonians, inhabitants of the so-called capital of the free world, don't have a voting member in Congress ...

Can you imagine how Parisians, Londoners, Moscovites, Mexico-City Mexicans -- name your capital, anywhere in the world -- would react if they were treated as second-class citizens?

The New York Times (via email)

The last votes of the 2016 presidential primary cycle will be cast by Democrats in Washington, D.C., on June 14.
The timing is fitting because the city’s residents were among the last groups to gain the right to vote in presidential elections, granted on this day in 1961.
That’s when Ohio ratified the 23rd Amendment, giving the measure the required approval of three-fourths of all states.
Washingtonians became entitled to three electoral votes in the election of the president, and beginning with Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, they’ve been reliably awarded to the Democratic candidate ever since.
Another breakthrough came in 1973, when President Richard M. Nixon signed a home-rule law empowering Washington, the nation’s first predominantly black large city, to elect a mayor and council.
But Washingtonians have only a nonvoting delegate in Congress.
Many residents, including President Obama, use cars that signal a frustration over that.
“Taxation Without Representation,” their license plates say.

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