Word: congression
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...District of Columbia has never had its own Senator or Representative, despite a population (nearly 600,000) larger than Wyoming's. That curious disenfranchisement may soon change, however, as a bill advances through Congress that would finally give D.C. a House member. On Feb. 24, the Senate voted to allow debate on the plan, which would expand the House to 437 members, its first enlargement in nearly 100 years. The bill would also grant Utah another vote until the next reapportionment in 2012, maintaining the body's partisan balance as D.C.'s addition would almost certainly be a Democrat...
...stripped away in 1874. Voters couldn't participate in presidential elections at all until the 23rd Amendment was ratified in 1963. After persistent lobbying by residents - their neighbors, after all - lawmakers passed the Home Rule Act of 1973, allowing voters to directly elect the mayor and city council. But Congress still acts as the District's slightly distant parent, wielding final budget control and reviewing all local laws. It nixed efforts to impose a "commuter tax" on Maryland and Virginia residents, for example, and banned buildings higher than the Capitol dome...
...Congress allowed D.C. to send a nonvoting delegate to the House of Representatives (a position currently filled by the fiery advocate Eleanor Holmes Norton), and continued pressure led to a 1978 constitutional amendment that would have given the District a full vote in Congress. But the amendment fizzled, winning support in fewer than half the states needed. In 1980 District voters even approved their own constitution - for a 51st state to be called New Columbia. That plan went nowhere. (See pictures of voting machines...
...slippery slope that would lead to U.S. Senators from D.C., a Democratic stronghold - the definition of a state is surprisingly hard to pin down. While the U.S. flag has only 50 stars, D.C. is considered a state in other legal references, such as the Constitution's provision that lets Congress regulate interstate commerce. (See 50 authentic American travel experiences...
...Tuesday evening, when President Barack Obama declared before a joint session of Congress that "we passed the recovery plan free of earmarks," House Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, popped out of their seats like jackrabbits for a standing ovation. On Wednesday, those same House Democrats, led by Pelosi, passed a budget with, by some counts, nearly 9,000 earmarks, worth an estimated $7.7 billion...