Kakki wrote:
>
> The 538 electors are spread among states according to the number of each
> state's representatives and senators in Washington. Maine and Nebraska
> divide their electoral vote according to the results in each congressional
> district, but everywhere else, it's winner-take-all.
thanks, Kakki, for the education. i'm going to take it a step further
to let you all know something that most americans don't - citizens of
washington,dc unlike the rest of the nation, are not nationally
represented. we are treated in violation of the constitution - we are
taxed, we are not represented. today at work, we were discussing the
electorate. someone said we had no electors, which i didn't believe. i
knew we had no senators or congressmen, but i thought our presidential
vote did count, as i thought numbers of electors were determined by
population. someone else was sure that we have 1 elector, which didn't
make any sense to me, because i know that alaska has 4, and that state's
and my city's population are roughly the same (around 600K). doesn't
seem fair, does it - 1 elector per 150K in alaska, 1 per 600K in dc...
you may now wonder, how did we get one elector if we have no
congressional representation? we actually do have one congresswoman who
represents us in the house, but she can't vote on any bills, she can
only get up and speak and beg others to see her point of view, without
having any true bargaining power. you can bet that DC doesn't see too
much in the way of pork.
this is a situation that we DCers would like to change, but republicans
want nothing to do with allowing us legal representation (being a
democratic-leaning city, it would mean more competition for them). we
do get some congressional funding as an attempt to make up for the
boatload of tax dollars we don't get for all the government property
here, but congress (under pig newt, if i remember correctly) formed a
"control board" to levy power over how we spend that money. they
decided that since the city was doing very poorly under major barry,
they'd just take half the mayor's power away. they have provided
spending contingencies, like we can't give out clean needles to drug
users and still use some of our funding for clinics (i'm approximating
here - it's been a while since i've read the fine print). so congress
can actually overturn decisions we make for ourselves by not allowing
things to be in our budget if they don't like them.
don't miss the irony here - the republicans, the politicians who are
always talking about how national government should stay out of local
government, are the bearers of this torch on the nation's capitol...
and the people that live in the very capitol of our democratic nation
are without representation as promised in the constitution.
barbara
np: youssou n'dour, joko
