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Via FreeRide, we read that WTOP's Mark Plotkin spent part of his live chat with washingtonpost.com yesterday afternoon to call out Ward 3 residents for not caring enough, if at all, about the District's lack of voting rights in Congress.
Q: In your experience, do people from Ward 3 generally not support statehood/voting rights? I grew up in the ward - Forest Hills represent - and have found so many people on my parents block not interested in the issue. These aren't people that are here for a year or two; like my parents, they have lived in the District for over 30 years. And none of them will care about Cheh/Ginsburg etc.Plotkin also took the time to express disenchantment with new Ward 3 Council member Mary Cheh for selecting Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg to swear her into office, since Ginsberg voted against voting rights for the District in Alexander v. Daley. Apparently when Plotkin spoke to her about the gaffe, he found Cheh to be "quite defensive and wrong." Plotkin did give Cheh props for her remarks in favor of voting rights, however.A new Fenty appointment lives on the block and will up the statehood support, but what is up with Ward 3?
Mark Plotkin: You are absolutely right. Ward 3, more than anything, just wants good city services. I just wish they cared more about this issue. It doesn't seem to bother them, that we are second class citizens.
What's your experience with Ward 3 residents on this issue? Are these Washingtonians really just too comfortable in their wealth and luxury to be bothered to stand up for their constitutional rights? Or is this an unfair generalization?
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unfair generalization.
As a lifelong Ward 3 resident, I think Mark Plotkin is FOS on this. He has a tendancy to look at everything through Statehood colored glasses.
When was the last time a Surpreme Court Justice attended or participated in a DC Inaugural? (Never would be the correct answer). I think it is great that Justice Ginsberg was able to take part in this event and speak so kindly of Councilperson Cheh, despite her ruling on previous cases.
Sam Smith of the Progressive Review blogged on this earlier, but the fact of the matter is that of all of the inaugural speeches, only Cheh was empahtic and impassioned about voting rights, and more particularly, Statehood.
Ward 3 citizens are concerned and engaged on this (one of the founders of DC Vote is a Ward 3 resident), and I think the questioner is misguided or hasn't had enough experience with other citizens in Ward 3.
Part of the problem is that the lack of voting rights in DC is constitutional. The Constitution pertains to the states—and as we all know—we aren’t a state.
The only real way to solve the issue is through an amendment. The only way that an amendment would ever get any traction is for an enormously popular president to call for it in the State of the Union--or some such other super public venue--like an inaugural address.
Most people in the country dont even realize the situation in DC. When I lived in Chicago I never had to pay a parking ticket on my car with DC plates b/c the ticket writer would always write in the state section MD, VA, WA, and, my favorite, US.
I'm 100% DC voting rights, primarily because once done, it would put Plotkin out of a job. Talk about one-trick pony. Does this guy talk about nothing else?
DC residents want voting rights, but people have more important things to worry about. Like how to walk home without getting raped, or when they can move out so their kid can find a decent school where teachers don't treat them like idiots. Or where they can find a decent burger for less than $12. Yeah, we want a vote. We also want cops to do their jobs, churches to pay their fair share or shut up, Metro trains to not go off the tracks...
Maybe people would be more enthusiastic if they were't sure they'd be treated like a political football by Congress and the Council.
I am patiently waiting for Jonathan Rees, the man who put Ward 3 on the map, to chime in with his comments on the issue.
Anyone that cares that much about voting can choose not to live here. Many of us are fine with it the way it is. Actually I don’t think the politicians care very much about the issue but statehood will create more offices for them to run for and they just love that idea!
A Supreme Court justice's ruling that an argument for DC voting rights is not supported by the Constitution doesn't mean the justice is opposed to DC voting rights any more than a judge's ruling in a criminal case that results in a murderer being found not guilty means the judge is pro-murder.
Plotkin is full of crap on this one. Several Ward 3 residents have been involved for years on DC voting rights. Cheh was the only councilmember who mentioned voting rights and she got strong applause for it. When Fenty tossed in his mention for DC being the 51st state, it was pathetically lame and clearly tossed out there just because he had to mention it.
But as my monkey brethren pointed out above, DC residents as a whole have many more important - and attainable - things to focus on.
As a brilliant legal eagle, my view is that statehood will never happen due to the slowness of a constitutional amendment. The Norton-Davis House bill is as close as we will get to full voting rights in Congress. And that's fine with me.
Personally, I'd rather have no federal taxation and no federal representation. Plotkin would say I like being a second class citizen. I'd say that I like not paying federal taxes and don't care whether Eleanor Holmes Norton gets to put delegate or representative on her business cards. Plotkin's head would then explode. And balance would be brought back to the Force.
I do not care about voting rights or statehood for DC nor do any of my close friends in NW. I like the idea that Congress will bail DC out when (not if) we screw up next. I also like the fact that if another Barry was elected, he could be quickly neutered by a control board appointed by Congress.
I want Eleanor to spend all her time and effort on getting more $$$ for DC and the council and mayor to focus on managing the city.
Logan Resident - sounds like you should move to Ward 3.
I think it's fair to note an inverse correlation between comfort and motivation. It's also fair to note that Ward 3 folks want better services. But so do we all.
Putting it all together, especially setting it up the way Sommer did, ("Are these Washingtonians really just too comfortable in their wealth and luxury to be bothered to stand up for their constitutional rights?") seems like a stretch.
I agree with many of the anti-Plotkin sayers on this one and would add: Be careful about generalizing all of the Ward 3 residents -- as a high proportion of them are not even US citizens or let alone registered DC voters. Also, when we do get statehood, if you think Montgomery county is overtaxed - well - DC will become the TaxMe state. I see no reason to think otherwise, yet.
erahk
When I read the Plotkin's comments I chuckled to myself thinking about all the times standing in front of the Safeway on Wisconsin and Davenport in Ward 3 (aka the Hidden Safeway) collecting signatures to run for "Shadow" Representative and the dozens of people who told me that it was a stupid job and we'd never get statehood/voting rights/respect and I should just give it up.
That said, I also remembered the much larger number of people who were excited that there was movement on the issue and talked to me at length about their ideas on how we could get it done.
I live in Ward 3, so do both Shadow Senators. Mary Cheh was the first council member to speak about it during the inauguration and I've met some great people in the Ward who have been fighting for this issue longer than I've been alive.
(And DCist what's up with the "wealth and luxury" comment...yeah there's truth to that, but there are some really shitty apartments in Ward 3. I've lived in my share of them.)
I live in Ward 3, and I don't care. I moved here from two years ago.
Frankly, with a horrible public school system, an out-of-control AIDS epidemic, and a consistently high homicide rate, we don't deserve representation. Maybe when we get our sh*t together.
I feel far more like a second class citizen when the MPD refuses to take a report or acts dismissive toward quality of life crime issues, than when I think about the fact that we don't have a real Senator. I also feel very secure in knowing that the federal gov't can bail us out with another control board the next time we get a Marion Barry like leader that drives our city into the ground.
Yes, the "wealth and luxury" comment is an unfair generalization. While there are plenty of rich, white Republicans living in their multi-million dollar homes in Ward 3, there are just as many middle-class folks living in those big apartment buildings that line Connecticut and Wisconsin Avenues.
Um. I'm a Ward 3 resident and just started a nonprofit organization to fight for states' rights, currently partnered with DCVote.org...
You can check us out here: http://www.indieroots.org/index (we're still fine tuning the site a little...)
I'm a Ward 3 resident and just started a nonprofit organization to fight for DC voting rights, currently partnered with DCVote.org...
You can check us out here: http://www.indieroots.org/index (we're still fine tuning the site a little...)
Jonathan, nobody's out to get you.
Your comment that we're all rich and comfortable in Ward 3 is borderline offensive. To be honest, some of us are poor and just know how to shop around good deals on rent. I've lived in Ward 3 for 2 years and know that most of us, especially in Glover Park fall into this category.
Second, Plotkin may very well have a (albeit weak) point, but, as a Ward 3 resident, I've actually helped start a nonprofit organization called Indieroots, DC to fight towards voting rights and supported by DC Vote. You can check us out here:
http://www.indieroots.org (we're still fine tuning the website...)
Jonathan, nobody's out to get you. The Mary Cheh conspiracy is not why you only received 23 votes in the primary.
sorry, my computer is screwed up today and kept giving me an internal error... barg!
Ward 3 definitely isn't 100% wealth and luxury. There are also some very lower middle class people who live in Ward 3. They manage to keep their family (two adults, three children) in their tiny apartments because paying the rent there is still better than what they can afford in much worse neighborhoods and buildings in DC.
Please, someone put me out of my misery!
Yes! I don't know about the rest of you, but having Rees back on the scene is sure to have me giggling at my desk everyday.
No we're not.
Neither are we. But we do like Rees' papers. They make us laugh. Useful too when there's no toilet paper in the crapper.
Just an FYI -- Rees' comments will be deleted, since he's not allowed in these parts.