Word: districts
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...could easily assume that the foregoing description of an era refers to the series of controversies regarding the annexation of free and slave states that prefaced the Civil War. Ominously, however, it also flawlessly encapsulates the more recent fracas over congressional representation in the District of Columbia...
...extended family—a recognizable bunch from the director’s other work—and a novel cast of young and attractive characters whose lives are facing hardship. In this latter plotline, Joshua (Derek Luke, “Friday Night Lights”), an assistant district attorney, sees his life disrupted when Candy, a childhood friend (Keshia Knight Pulliam from “The Cosby Show”), is charged with prostitution. But unlike former Madea movies, “Madea Goes to Jail” fails to skillfully weave these two threads together. The movie opens...
...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...
Amid mounting frustration, the District in 2000 revived a Revolutionary rallying cry, emblazoning the phrase "taxation without representation" on license plates at the suggestion of a fed-up D.C. radio talk-show listener. (They're now the default license option, though neutral plates are issued on request.) Bill Clinton swiftly added the plates to his presidential limousine, though one of George W. Bush's first official acts was to remove them. The protest plates have not returned to President Barack Obama's ride, and some locals are growing impatient. "[It's] just something that the President hasn't gotten...
...Senate majority leader Harry Reid on Wednesday defended the 2009 earmarks, arguing that while Democrats have worked to shrink the number of earmarks in recent years, such pet projects do play a vital role in the budget. Who better knows the needs of each district and state, he argued, than the members representing those populations? "Since we've been a country, we have had an obligation as a Congress to help direct spending," Reid told reporters on Capitol Hill. "We cannot let spending be done by a bunch of nameless, faceless bureaucrats buried in this town someplace...