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WASHINGTON – Yolanda Lee is a decorated captain in the District of Columbia National Guard and a lifelong Washingtonian. She spent most of 2005 deployed to Iraq, where she got to watch first-hand as the country elected its transitional National Assembly.

For Lee, the right of Iraqis to elect members to their own legislature was a sign that democracy had finally come to Iraq, and she thinks it is about time that the United States follows the lead.

As a resident of Washington, Lee has no directly elected national representation, only a non-voting delegate in the House of Representatives.

According to the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Washington is the only capital city of a democratic country where residents are denied representation in that country’s legislature.

“This body regularly interferes with the rights of D.C. residents in ways that none of our constituents would ever tolerate,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y. “How does Congress get away with it? Very simply, the people of the District of Columbia have no vote. They have what this nation fought its revolution over: taxation without representation.”

Now, District residents, who number more than the entire population of the state of Wyoming, are closer than ever to gaining a full voting member in the House.

“A vote means that men, women and children from this city can walk down the National Mall and know that they own it – as much as any tourist off the bus from Indiana, New York, or Georgia owns it,” said House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md.

Washington was always intended to be a borough separate from the states. The framers of the Constitution concluded that an independent Federal District was the best way to protect Congress from any undue influence from a state.

While the District of Columbia was being established in land ceded to the federal government by Virginia and Maryland, residents of the new district were still allowed to vote in the jurisdiction where they had previously. Once the government officially moved to its new home, that right no longer applied. Analysis of the framers’ records conflict about whether they intended for the District to have congressional representation.

The District is not without any representation, however. The city elects its own mayor and city council and was granted three electoral votes in presidential elections in 1960. For all other purposes, Congress has broad authority to govern Washington, including final approval over its budget and operating its court system.

One person, one vote

Change could be on the way. The Senate passed a bill in February that would grant Washington, traditionally a Democratic stronghold, a single representative in the House in exchange for a new congressional district in Utah, a majority Republican state.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, has called the deal to give Utah an additional representative “political bribery,” since Utah is next in line to gain a fourth seat after the 2010 census anyway. So it would only be rushing the expected, Chaffetz said.

The House version of the bill, instead of carving out a new district within the state, would call for the new Utah member to be elected at-large statewide, meaning each Utah voter would be represented by both a member from their district as well as the at-large member.

Opponents of the bill have said that the House version violates the “one person, one vote” principle established by the Supreme Court.

“In essence, the at-large seat results in Utah residents having disproportionately more representation in the House than citizens in other states,” argues Chaffetz.

The House is expected to take up the measure in the coming weeks, but a Senate gun amendment is likely to undermine support. The amendment would repeal Washington’s ban on semiautomatic weapons and eliminate registration requirements for most gun owners as well as criminal penalties for possessing an unregistered gun.

If a compromise is reached and President Barack Obama signs the bill into law, the constitutionality of the legislation is likely to be challenged.

Constitutional Roadblocks

Contrary to many of the political disputes in Washington, the debate surrounding this bill is not so much about the ends as the means.

The “notion of a nation with a capital without voting representation seems illogical and un-American,” Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, told Congress. “[But] the language of the Constitution is clear and unambiguous. Absent an amendment to the Constitution, only states may vote on the floor of the United States House of Representatives.”

Disagreements over whether a constitutional amendment is required arise from contrasting readings of the Constitution.

Supporters of the bill argue that the “District Clause,” which grants Congress the power to “exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over such District” gives them exclusive, sweeping legislative power concerning Washington. If Congress wants to grant the district representation in the House, it has that ability, Viet Dinh, a Georgetown University law professor told a House committee in January.

“Significantly, use of the District Clause to afford District residents the same rights as other U.S. citizens has never been struck down [by the Supreme Court],” Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., said.

The District Clause has been used as the basis to grant Washington residents the right to vote for president as well as for civil rights protections under the Bill of Rights.

Opponents of the bill site the “Qualification Clause” as establishing specific qualifications for representation that Washington does not meet. It states that the “House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states.”

The bill is an effort to “legislatively create an end-run around the expressed words of the Constitution,” said Rep. Louie Ghomert, R-Texas. “A review of the framers’ debates reveals that the founders did not consider D.C. a state.”

Even if Washington prevails and wins the right to a representative in the House, the fight may not be over. Some Washington residents believe that a vote in the House will not be enough and are pushing for full statehood.

Anise Jenkins, president of Stand up! For Democracy in D.C., said, “a single vote in the House would fall far short of the full democratic rights that statehood would bring,” including representation in the Senate and full local legislative authority.

While a successful run for statehood seems unlikely for the District, Capt. Yolanda Lee told a House committee in January that she would be happy with just what the current bill offers.

“Four generations of my family have lived without this right. I am proud to be an American. I am proud to be a Washingtonian. And I am proud to be a soldier. That will never change,” said Lee. “But I ask you to change my status as an American citizen who pays taxes and serves in war and peace, but is entitled only to a non-voting delegate in the House of Representatives.”