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EDITORIAL
It's all a charade
(Published November 17, 2003)

There’s a simple reason why D.C. residents can’t get full citizenship rights: The District’s elected officials don’t want it to happen. The status quo helps incumbents build and retain their power.

Despite their many symbolic actions over the years – including the recent creation of "Taxation Without Representation" license tags – the mayor and members of the D.C. City Council devote much of their time to subverting public participation in how the D.C. government functions.

A prime example is the many closed-door meetings and "retreats" in which the District’s elected officials participate. In most U.S. jurisdictions and under most circumstances, a majority of elected officials serving on a governing body – the number needed to conduct official business – is legally barred from gathering without providing public notice and public access to the gathering. Even breakfast or lunch gatherings would be subject to legal sanctions in many places.

But not in the District of Columbia. In the nation’s capital, just about anything goes.

Elected officials can – and frequently do – make secret political deals that affect the way they vote. That’s why the public seldom is privy to any real, spontaneous debate among the District’s elected officials, who have a penchant for presenting a "united front" to the public on many important issues. What the public sees is usually mere window dressing – a conglomeration of orchestrated public statements to explain an official position that was determined before seeking public comment through a formal legal process.

That’s not the way representative government in the United States is supposed to work. Democracy requires robust public debate. It requires the public airing of differing viewpoints before either reaching consensus or letting the majority rule.

Seldom do D.C. residents hear their elected officials’ opinions on anything until a final vote is taken – and they often never learn anything about the debate that led to that final decision.

Another important debate has been underway in recent weeks regarding the future governance of the District’s public schools. But once again, the public is being locked out of the private discussion by the mayor and council members, who acknowledge they are trying to reach consensus on a direction by year’s end.

Their timetable includes eventually consulting the public, but only after they decide what they want to do. The public will be permitted to express opinions and make suggestions, which – according to the plan being followed by the mayor and council – will apparently be summarily ignored, because elected officials already will have made up their minds about where they are headed.

Meanwhile, Mayor Anthony A. Williams and the council quietly bypassed the public on Sept. 25 and went directly to Congress to seek suspension of a portion of the District’s home rule charter during the current fiscal year. If their request is granted by the District’s congressional overseers, the partially elected D.C. Board of Education will lose its authority to control the school system’s budget.

What’s wrong with this picture?