Should D.C. get a vote in Congress? Since Washington, D.C., is a federal district and not a state, it has no senators and no voting member in the House.

• Position: DEBATE

YES

"Taxation without representation" was the rallying cry of the American Revolution 235 years ago, and it's still a fact of life for the 600,000 Americans who live in Washington, D.C., the nation's capital.

District of Columbia residents have all the responsibilities of citizenship, but not the privilege of a vote in Congress. They pay the highest federal taxes per capita in the nation. They serve on federal juries. And they fight and die in our wars.

More Americans live in D.C. than in the entire state of Wyoming. Yet D.C. residents have no senators and no voting member in the House of Representatives. That means they have no say on health care or immigration reform, military spending, and federal laws affecting education, the economy, the environment, or foreign affairs.

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Since World War I, nearly 200,000 D.C. residents have served in the military, and nearly 2,000 have died in combat. Hundreds fight today to promote democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq--but all are denied democracy at home.

Opponents argue that the Constitution says that members of Congress can be elected only by "people of the several states." In fact, D.C. is already treated as a state in hundreds of ways, most notably for the purpose of federal taxation: The Constitution states that federal taxes can be levied "among the several states." But District residents pay billions every year in federal taxes.

It's time to put an end to this injustice. The people of Washington, D.C., help pay for the federal government and are subject to federal law. They should have voting representation in Congress and a voice in how their tax dollars are spent.

--ILIR ZHERKA

Executive Director, DC Vote

NO

More than 200 years ago, our Founding Fathers established a new kind of federal government: All states would have to work together, no state would be favored over another, and legislation would need broad geographic support to...