Last week, Sen. Sam Brownback, a conservative Republican from Kansas, expressed concern over the issue of gay marriage, stating, quoted by the Post:

I have been and continue to be a strong believer and protector of traditional marriage. I think it's an important issue for society and for the country.

Surprising wasn't the content of his opinion, but rather the context in which it was offered. Brownback was speaking as the chairman of the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on the District of Columbia, the five-person Senate panel charged with amending and approving the $8 billion D.C. budget, and he was speaking in opposition to District plans to allow married gay couples to file taxes jointly. Again, circumstances like these highlight the awkward nature of representative democracy in the capital of the country that is trying to spread democracy around the world.

This is hardly the first time this has happened, much less is it likely to be the last.

The District's Budget
The District's annual budget has long been hampered by the fact that Congress must approve it -- a state of affairs which on average delays the passage of the budget by three months and threatens the city's ability to pay for fundamental social services. The role of Congress in amending and approving the city's budget stems from Article I of the Constitution, which states that the federal government has exclusive legislative authority over its seat of government, which the District became more than 200 years ago. Since then, the District has lacked budgetary and legislative autonomy, allowing members of Congress to hold veto power over city-wide policies and programs, or, worse yet, impose their own without the consent of District residents.

Partisan Politics and the District
At any given time the U.S. Congress -- be it one member or an entire political party -- uses its powers over the District to push projects or make statements that would otherwise fall flat in their own states, districts, or within the legislative body itself. While this legislative posturing is often just that -- posturing -- it just as often results in policies being imposed on or threatened by politicians who do not represent the interests of District residents, much less understand what may work best for the Democratic-leaning city. Washington is a testing ground for legislators pet projects, a city conviniently under Congress' control and subject to its many partisan whims.

Just last year the House of Representatives voted to repeal the city's stringent 19-year old gun laws. The legislation, sponsored by Indiana Republican Mark Souder, passed 250-171, but never came to a vote in the Senate. Had it done so, it would been added as an amendment to the city's 2005 budget. The Post, incensed by the Congressional move, offered the following scathing opinion:

The last thing District residents and their police force need -- in a city that lost 14 of its children to shootings this year -- is an increase in the availability of guns. That is precisely what [Idaho Sen. Larry] Craig and gun lovers in Congress, shamefully and shamelessly, seek to do.

A similar infusion of partisan politics into local issues occured last January, when a delayed city budget was passed with a measure allowing for a 5-year pilot program through which 2,000 eligible students would receive school vouchers worth up to $7,500 for private education. While the proposal was less shameless than that proposed by Congressional gun advocates, it divided local officials (7 of 13 members of the D.C. Council opposed them) and activists, painted the District as a testing ground for partisan policies, and ultimately failed to achieve its goals.

A Necessary Fix
On April 14, a bi-partisan group of Senators and Representatives introduced legislation that would greatly curtail the ability of Congress to veto the District budget. Rep. Tom Davis, the powerful Northern Virginia Republican chairman of the House Government Reform Committee and sponsor of the legislation, noted the negative role Congress often played in holding up the approval process for partisan ends:

While Congress has a constitutional responsibility to ensure the financial well being of our nation's capital, the unfortunate reality is that the city's local budget can get tied up in political stalemates over congressional appropriations that rarely have anything to do with the District's budget.

The legislation, known as the District of Columbia Budget Autonomy Act of 2005, is currently being debated in Mr. Davis' committee.

The question of the week is whether or not Sen. Brownback will carry out his threat against the city and use his budgetary powers to legislate morality for District residents. If he does, he'll be following in the footsteps of other politicians before him. If not, he may very well serve as a leader in arguing that District residents are mature enough to decide for themselves what is right and wrong, what works best, and what they are or are not interested in pursuing.