Last night over 250 District voting rights activists attended an event they probably all wished they wouldn’t have to celebrate — DC Vote’s Champions of Democracy 2005 award ceremony. Held in the Madison Hotel along 15th Street, attendees came together to share in food, drink, and mutual indignation over an undeniable and odious injustice forced upon the city’s 600,000 residents — the inability to vote for members of Congress. Beneath the pleasant social atmosphere ran an obvious under-current of resentment that an event of this sort would even need to be held in a democratic country. Why are District residents forced to recognize and applaud voting activists in their own communities? Isn’t electoral franchise a given in most of the world? Given the District’s second-class status, apparently not.

The night began with the “Let Washington Be Heard” silent auction for 75 different prizes — everything from the use of an Executive Suite at the MCI Center for 12 (minimum bid, $1250; buy now price, $2750) to lunch with individual members of the City Council (Marion Barry at Ben’s Chili Bowl started at $50) or a private guided tour of the National Zoo for 10 (no word on whether Butterstick, errr, Tai Shan would be included). Adrian Fenty made an early appearance alongside supporters and staffers wearing “Fenty for Mayor” stickers, proving that the Ward 4 councilman cannot go an hour without reminding passersby of his mayoral ambitions. Council chair Linda Cropp made a discrete entrance, while Kathy Patterson (D-Ward 3), Phil Mendelson (D-At Large), and D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton mingled with residents, activists, philanthropists, and businessmen.

As the auction concluded, attendees gathered to witness the presentation of the night’s two “Champion of Democracy” awards to local voting rights activists Joslyn Williams and Joe Sternlieb. Williams, current president of the Metropolitan Washington Council of the AFL-CIO and a Jamaican immigrant, demurely spoke of the day he recited the Pledge of Allegiance more than forty years ago, anxiously awaiting his chance to exercise his democratic rights as a new U.S. citizen. “It’s been four decades of a dream deferred,” he noted to hearty applause, adding, “Before I depart for the pearly gates, I expect to be voting for you [referring to Norton] for the House of Representatives and two senators.” Sternlieb, the night’s second award recipient, DC Vote founder, and current deputy director of the Downtown DC Business Improvement District Corporation, spoke of the denial of voting rights for District residents as an “equal opportunity insult.” Upon remarking on democratic advances in Iraq and Afghanistan, he asked to much laughter, “Wouldn’t it be ironic if the people of Havana get the vote before we do?”

Ironic, of course. Surprising? Not at all.