Taxation without Representation, Year 210

The District of Columbia's 600,000 residents came very close this spring to achieving full voting representation in the House of Representatives for the first time in history.

Unfortunately, the bipartisan bill was hijacked by the National Rifle Association, which saw it as an opportunity to strip DC's prerogative to regulate firearms. When the gun-rights provision got tacked onto the voting-representation bill, DC officials split over what to do, and the advocacy coalition splintered. The bill was withdrawn.

The Washington City Paper did a good story on the legislative shenanigans.

The bill had hinged on a deal, worked out by then-Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), that would have temporarily added a (presumably Republican) Congressional seat to Utah's delegation to balance the (assuredly Democratic) DC seat. That deal was only operative through the 2010 Census and subsequent redistricting, which would have returned the House to 435 members in 2012.

DC Vote, a scrappy little nonprofit that has run some of the most creative advocacy campaigns I've seen on any issue anywhere, is now at a crossroads. The House deal is off the table, and the next Congress is likely to be less friendly, not more, to a clean (gun free) bill. DC Vote's visionary leaders and devoted members are as frustrated as they've ever been.

Expect to see some good political theater emanating from 20th & P Sts. The persistence of taxation without representation in the nation's capital never ceases to mystify me.

The Community Service Movement Has Arrived

Numerous scholars, including Russell Dalton and Cliff Zukin et al., have argued that the Millennial generation, born after 1976, is exceptionally service-oriented (though perhaps not especially politically minded). The New York Times offers anecdotal evidence: Teach for America, which places college grads into under-served schools, is vying with elite graduate schools for top talent.

Teach for America, which arose out of Princeton student Wendy Kopp's senior thesis in the late 1980s, has become a core component of the national AmeriCorps service program. At several universities, including my home institution, AmeriCorps was the top hiring institution this year.

The Times notes that "Teach for America has become an elite brand that will help build a résumé," suggesting that the community-service movement, which began in the late 1980s, has truly arrived.

The Supreme Court on Guns, Part 2

Not surprisingly, the Supreme Court has found that the 2nd Amendment protects the right to own a handgun for self-defense in the home. The ruling in McDonald v. City of Chicago extended nationwide the logic of the Court's decision two years ago in District of Columbia v. Heller.

Although most of the majority decision and the dissents focused on Constitutional rights (namely, the doctrine of "incorporation" via the 14th Amendment), Justice John Paul Stevens raised interesting questions about guns and participatory democracy. Citing Harvard legal scholar Cass Sunstein, Justice Stevens noted that gun owners are not at a disadvantage in the democratic process, and citing my book, Disarmed, he argued that if anything their policy preferences receive excessive deference from lawmakers. The relevant section is on pp. 49-50.

As I have noted below, policies structure politics. With handgun bans off the table, it will be interesting to see how gun control and gun rights forces mobilize in the new political order.

Photo courtesy of the Supreme Court.

DukeEngage in DC

As part of the university's mission to put "knowledge in the service of society," Duke in 2007 created a summer program, DukeEngage, which puts undergraduates in service postings around the world, from South Africa to China, Haiti to Vietnam.

This summer DukeEngage inaugurated its Washington, DC, program. The students are working with Rock the Vote to register people, especially young people, in time for the next election. (I am leading the students' weekly seminar, with guest speakers and discussions of scholarly work relating to the history of voting rights.)

The students are blogging about their work here and here.