Inappropriate Content: Imperial City Dispatch©

A big part of most of my favorite blogs is their locality. Phoblographer blogs on California in general and her hometown of San Pedro in specific. Democracy Guy blogs on Cleveland, Ohio and his old stomping grounds in Eastern Europe. And OxBlog, while not as local as the rest, definitely has some anglophile tendencies.

When I read blogs that aren't specific to one place or another, it's either because they bring something special to the debate (Democracy Arsenal, for example, brings the foreign policy heavyweight title; Noam Schieber and the other folks at TNR's blog are the smart liberals here at home) or because they're funny as all hell.

While I occasionally try to keep up with Salt Lake City in my Hickville Dispatch© posts, I don't have much local flavor. Hard to do when you live in a city that defines itself by being the representation of otherplacess politics. This week, though, the local indie rag, Washington's City Paper, has a story that's both illuminating about D.C. politics and has a bit of a Utah connection, so I really must cover it.

From City Paper:

D.C. Shadow Rep. Ray Browne sometimes has a hard time getting noticed.

He's a good-natured 66-year-old who wears conservative suits and ties. He doesn't indulge in the showboating that dominates political circles. He works for no pay as the city's voting-rights lobbyist, absorbing barbs and jokes about his position along the way. His message about D.C.'s orphaned political status may get more traction in state capitals and city-council offices around the country than at home. (He has a stack of resolutions in support of voting rights to prove it.)

But the shadow representative is now in a campaign that is boosting his political profile. Browne has picked a fight with the undisputed queen of the District's voting-rights struggle, D.C. Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton.

Browne tells anyone who will listen that Norton is not representing the interests of District residents because she won't co-sponsor D.C. voting-rights legislation sponsored by Rep. Tom Davis.

That's a bigger deal than you think. DC politics are pretty hard core, and the scandals the local DC politicos get themselves into make their big cousins on the Hill look like amateurs. Just ask Marion Barry—he's on the city council, so his number is probably online. And this year's face for mayor promises to be a roller-coaster.

But that's never applied to Holmes Norton, seen at left with Senator Barak Obama and Congressman William Lacy Clay. Her record is unimpeachable: she grew up in DC, went to Yale, became involved in the civil rights movement, was a law professor at NYU and later Georgetown, and has been the District's non-voting delegate in Congress for almost fifteen years. City Paper assesses her as "a strong-willed stateswoman who's not to be messed with."

Recently, Norton tussled with Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison when Hutchison attempted to repeal Washington, DC's gun ban. In the District, those sort of antics rub people the wrong way. Why, we think, do these people from Texas think they can come here and screw with our city? While Hutchison may see it as a second-amendment issue, even pro-gun District residents see it as an issue of District sovereignty.

...

One of the downsides of Blogging at work is that I have to start and stop often enough that there's a danger I'll completely lose my place. I have utterly forgotten what my point was with this post, if there was one. I suppose I wanted to get a little more "here's what's happening in DC" stuff on the blog. Well, I'm going to finish this post, for spite's sake, no matter how random or pointless it ends up being.

Holmes Norton doesn't support Tom Davis' bill because she's already got a bill, sponsored in the Senate by Joe Leiberman, to give DC full representation—two senators and a representative, just like Delaware or South Dakota. Davis' bill only gives the District a representative:

The D.C. Fairness in Representation Act would temporarily expand the House by two seats, to 437 members. One seat would be added for the District; Utah would get the other. (Utah leaders have argued that they were cheated out of a fourth seat because of undercounting during the 2000 census.) Under Davis' bill, the U.S. House would roll back to 435 members for the 2012 election. D.C. would keep a seat, and the 2010 census would dictate congressional re-apportionment in the rest of the country.

I predict Norton will eventually settle for supporting Davis' bill. Any improvement is better than what we're stuck with now.

As an aside, someone like current Mayor Anthony Williams or various council members would find the DC Rep's job more attractive if it came with actual voting power. And Barry could get a lot of votes simply from people who know they'll get some free entertainment. Me, I'd vote for him on the admittedly small chance it would make Orrin Hatch's head explode. Worth the gamble, in my opinion.

Oh, speaking of Marion Barry's entertainment value, he's just purchased a used Jaguar:

It has a dent in the driver's-side front fender and another on the passenger side. The rear passenger-side door features large scrape and a dent. "I can't afford a new one," Barry says, but he reminds LL that he has now joined an exclusive council caucus: Cropp and At-Large Councilmember Carol Schwartz are also Jag owners. "Maybe it's time to start a used-Jaguar club," Barry says. The new ride must have Barry feeling pretty important. While he chaired a Sept. 17 hearing on vocational education at the John A. Wilson Building, his Jag was parked in the area reserved for the mayor's motorcade. Four straw hats in the back window were the only permits on display.