What the District of Columbia lacks in democratic representation at the federal level, it makes up for in local pro-democracy groups: There’s the Deaniac-led DC for Democracy, the adorable/annoying DC Young Suffragists (decide for yourself) and the the umbrella group DC Vote, under which other groups lend support to the movement. And there is another symbol of the District’s yearning, one that doesn’t move at all: the Democracy Tree at 21st Street and New Hampshire Avenue NW.

The tree was planted five years ago this past weekend by Mark Schaefer, then a seminary student at American University and today a chaplain there. For about two years before then, the little elm sapling grew in a flower pot on his sixth-floor balcony across the street. Schaefer hadn’t planted it in the first place — the wind probably took care of that — but once it was there he took care of it anyway, until it became clear that the limited space was hampering the tree’s growth.

Looking across New Hampshire, he spied a row of empty tree boxes — rectangular plots of earth surrounded by concrete, not actual boxes — that looked like good candidates for the elm’s relocation.