The citizens of Washington, D.C., are deprived of the primary means for citizens to consent to (or dissent from) the policies of our government. As their license plates say, they suffer “Taxation Without Representation.” No representative or senator speaks for them on policies they live with — from education to homeland security to Social Security to the war in Iraq. And no senator speaks for them on the confirmation of judges, the signing of treaties, or impeachment.

To get full voting rights, the citizens of the District of Columbia need the help of their fellow citizens all across America — those of us who do have representatives in Congress, who can ask them to support D.C. voting rights. This is especially important right now, because for the first time in decades there is momentum on this issue. A proposal to grant the District a seat has gained ground in the House, but Republicans have attached it to legislation weakening the District’s gun-control laws. President Bush has also threatened a veto.

D.C.’s voting plight began with the Constitution, which provides for a capital city over which Congress would have legislative authority. In those days that seemed necessary, and full Congressional authority continued from 1801 until the Civil Rights era of the 1960s when partial voting rights began to be granted, incrementally.

In 1961 the 23rd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, granting D.C. citizens the right to vote in presidential elections. And in 1970 the District gained a non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives. The incumbent, since 1991, is Eleanor Holmes Norton. She can vote in committee and for limited purposes on the floor— but only when it does not matter: when her vote will not break a tie.

The other voting rights advances from the civil rights period have to do with local self-government, another area of restriction for D.C. residents. From 1801 through the Civil War the residents of the District had considerable self-government, but in 1871 Congress instituted an appointed government. This colonial system was finally changed during the civil rights era.

First, in 1967, the School Board became an elected body. Then, in 1973 the Home Rule Act passed Congress, providing for an elected mayor and city council. If those were two steps forward for self-governance, the step back was that under Home Rule all D.C. legislation and the budget require federal approval. Like taxation without representation, this limit on self-governance is an injustice — but that battle is for another day.

Since the 1960s, several other voting rights measures have been given consideration in Congress, but have failed passage. This leaves Washington as the only capital in a democratic country that does not have full voting rights — a great irony in a country which cherishes government of, by, and for the people.

The District is home to almost 600,000 people — if it had Congressional representation, it would be clustered among seven states which have fewer than a million residents. Except for representation, D.C. is already treated like a state — hundreds of federal laws and regulations apply to the fifty states and the District of Columbia. Then there are taxes: D.C. residents pay about $5 billion a year in District taxes, and they pay their full federal taxes, at one of the highest per capita rates in the country.

Unlike citizens anywhere else in the nation, citizens in ‘the other Washington’ unfairly suffer from taxation without representation. That’s wrong. The people of D.C. have protested and proposed solutions, but only Congress can remedy this injustice. It is up to us to raise awareness of this injustice and to work to right this wrong.

The rub is that national polling shows 80 percent of Americans do not even know that the citizens of Washington, D.C. do not have the right to elect representatives to Congress. Maybe you didn’t know — but now you do! Please ask your Congressional representatives to support D.C. voting rights!

Please attend a Voting Rights Forum on March 29, at 7:30 pm at the Seattle First Baptist Church, 1111 Harvard Avenue. The League of Women Voters of Seattle and its co-sponsors, The ACLU, MEDC, ROAR, and Hate Free Zone, will present a panel of speakers on several modern forms of disenfranchisement of voting-age citizens in our country. For more information, call (206)329-4848 or visit www.seattlelwv.org.

Ellen Z. Berg is a boardmember with the League of Women Voters of Seattle.