Photo by cmoaknd

Dear President Obama,

Hi! First, let us be the first to congratulate you on your re-election. Now that you’ve beaten Mitt Romney, you can start concentrating on the work that will occupy your time over the next four years. If the Republicans thought you were a socialist bent on destroying America during the first term, they don’t even know what they have coming now, right?

But seriously. We’re not sure if you checked the election results, but D.C. again came down on your side. And we didn’t just give you a piddly 52 percent or something—fully 91 percent of ballots cast yesterday in the city were for your re-election. Sure, that’s down from the 93 percent we gave you in 2008, but still, pretty solid. In short, we’ve got your back.

Now how about you get ours? In the grand scheme of D.C. voting rights, self-determination and statehood, it’s been a pretty hopeless and changeless four years. Not only did you refuse to put a “Taxation Without Representation” license plate on the presidential limo, but you traded away our right to fund local abortions in order to break partisan gridlock over the federal budget. Sure, you’ve said you support D.C. voting rights and have spent plenty of time eating out at our local restaurants, but hey, no amount of Ben’s Chili Bowl will serve to replace the simple democratic rights we lack.

We get that the issue is tricky, and you’d have to face down plenty of partisan opposition. But if you could marshal one of the biggest health care reform bills ever through Congress, we imagine you could at least take a stronger stand on the fact that the 630,000 residents that are happy to call you a neighbor have no voting representation in Congress and still lack the basic vestiges of budgetary and legislative autonomy.

This isn’t an easy issue, and many people have many different opinions on what can be done to remedy D.C.’s longstanding second-class status? Should we be retroceded into Maryland? Be exempted from paying federal taxes? Gain statehood, spare for a small federal core of the city? You don’t necessarily have to explicitly spell out what you’d like to see done, but what we need is some of that presidential leadership.

Challenge Congress to keep doing absolutely nothing. Call Republicans out on siding with states’ rights everywhere but in D.C., where they more often than not try to legislate social issues for us. Make this the type of issue they can’t stand to ignore any longer. Ask them why American soldiers have died for democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, while that same principle remains unfulfilled in the nation’s capital.

Think you can’t do it? You wouldn’t be the first to try. In his 1955 State of the Union address, President Eisenhower asked Congress to extend the “principle of self-government” and “right of suffrage” to D.C. residents. In 1960, he repeated the message to Congress, saying, “Both equity and efficiency require that the people of the nation’s capital be given a voice in their own local government and that the role of the federal government be limited to matters of federal concern.” In 1964 we got the right to vote in presidential elections, and nine years after that we got Home Rule.

Yes, it will be challenging—but be creative. Puerto Rico just voted for statehood, so why not tie our plight to theirs? New states to the union have come in pairs, after all. That not being possible, say that you’ll settle for nothing less than budget autonomy for D.C. There’s absolutely no reason that our locally raised dollars have to be appropriated to Congress only to be appropriated back to us—and sometimes not, leaving the city’s government at risk of closure when partisans on the Hill can’t be adults about the federal budget.

Over the course of the year, you made some pretty momentous—and politically risky—pronouncements. Same-sex marriage? For it! The children of undocumented immigrants? They should be allowed to stay! Now that you’re entering your second term, there’s little political price to pay for doing the same for D.C. voting rights. If anything, it will serve as a gesture of appreciation to the D.C. residents that have steadfastly supported you and a solemn recognition of the democratic principles that this country should continue to stand for.

It’s time you brought some of that hope and change back to the people who supported you most.

Respectfully,
Washington, D.C.