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By Marion Edwyn Harrison, Esq.
November 15, 2006
THE WASHINGTON POST undeniably is influential, often factually is accurate, upon rare occasion editorially is something other than liberal. Once in awhile it is blatantly inconsistent. Thus, its lead editorial on November 13, 2006 is entitled “The Lame-Duck Congress [ - ] Passing spending bills and giving the District [of Columbia] voting rights in the House should be priorities.” Next day, after its lead November 14 editorial (endorsing Marylander Steny Hoyer over Pennsylvanian John P. Murtha for 110th Congress House Majority Leader), THE POST editorializes, “Raid on the D. C. Treasury [,] Today’s stealth attempt by city lawmakers to give themselves raises should be stopped in its tracks.”
“Today D. C. Council members will launch a sneak attack . . . to enrich themselves without giving taxpayers a chance to express their views . . . raise the mayor’s salary from $152,000 to $200,00 and boost the [part-time] council chairman’s salary from $ 142,000 to $190,000 . . . $250,000 in transition funds [for the newly elected Mayor] and . . . [the] Council Chairman-elect . . . transition team $150,000 . . . ‘emergency’ legislation’ . . .” reports THE POST in the latter editorial.
Anyone aware of conditions in the District of Columbia recognizes, among other phenomena, the pervasive incompetence of the D. C. Government; the fact that it has more employees per capita than any other American city (while many functions are performed by the Federal Government); its relatively tiny voting population; the unacceptable, sometimes sad, state of its public schools and welfare system; its high crime level; so on.
So raid the D. C. Treasury and grant even greater home rule.
The axis of liberal, and just plain partisan, Democrats, dramatically and repeatedly joined by Virginia’s GOP Representative Thomas M. Davis, III, may now, or more likely in the 110th Congress, seek - and absent a Presidential veto, achieve - further Congressional power. Already the City’s local politicians have renamed the Corporation Counsel the “Attorney General,” as though the District were a State of the Union. Every step is in the direction of the functioning equivalent of statehood - a voting Member of the House of Representatives, two voting Members of the United States Senate, all of whom, of course, would be liberal Democrats. Mr. Davis’ aspirations are less sweeping - merely to be elected Senator from Virginia in 2008 or as soon thereafter as possible (calculating that Virginia is becoming less conservative, as it somewhat is).
Read on. With a bit of repetition, some history and background are set out.
The District of Columbia and the Politics of Pandering - The Latest Incarnation (May 17, 2006)
Marion Edwyn Harrison is President of, and Counsel to, the Free Congress Foundation.
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