COUNTYWIDE : Delegate Assails O.C. Politicians

“Taxation without representation is tyranny! And the fact is, these gentlemen attempt to govern without the consent of the governed.”

The irate speaker is no 18th-Century firebrand. He is Walter E. Fauntroy, the nattily dressed delegate who represents the District of Columbia in Congress. And the gentlemen to whom he refers are not long-dead English monarchs.

They are Orange County’s own William E. Dannemeyer and Robert K. Dornan, Fauntroy’s colleagues in the House of Representatives and, in his view, egregious meddlers.

Dannemeyer (R-Fullerton) and Dornan (R-Garden Grove) brought on Fauntroy’s pique last week during an exceptionally emotional House debate over the $538-million appropriations bill for the District of Columbia.

At issue were religious freedom, home rule for the district, homosexual rights and abortion.

A longtime foe of homosexuality, Dannemeyer led a successful floor fight to rewrite a section of the district’s human rights ordinance to allow Roman Catholic Georgetown University to withhold formal recognition from campus gay rights groups.

Dornan had earlier tried, but failed, to persuade the House to prohibit within the district the use of public funds to perform abortions.

Although neither Dornan nor Dannemeyer are on the House District of Columbia Committee, they offered no apologies for their efforts to influence district affairs.

“When you have a cause, you fight on any battlefield presented,” Dornan said.

Fauntroy, he said, “should understand that, having fought through the civil rights battles. You look for your best target.”

Dannemeyer said: “The truth of the matter is that Congress does have the authority under the Constitution to direct the activities of the District of Columbia. If we have that power and don’t exercise it, we are in fact condoning what has taken place.”

The battle has raised questions about the extent to which Congress should exert its constitutional authority over the affairs of the district.

The Constitution grants Congress the power to “exercise exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever, over such District as may . . . become the seat of government of the United States.”

However, Congress has relinquished some authority over the years by permitting residents of the district to elect their own mayor, City Council and a delegate to Congress. Fauntroy, the delegate, does not have full voting power.

The case involving Georgetown University pitted the elected City Council against conservatives in Congress.

For years, the Jesuits who run Georgetown had refused to recognize homosexual groups seeking the use of school money and facilities. But the school was forced to reach an accommodation with the groups after the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled that the city’s tough Human Rights Act, enacted by the council, bars discrimination based on sexual preference.

Last year, Congress passed legislation, introduced by conservative Sen. William L. Armstrong (R-Colo.), directing the D.C. council to rewrite its human rights law to permit religious institutions to discriminate against groups who violate tenets of their religion. But a court held the congressional action to violate the free-speech rights of the council members.

This year, both houses adopted a new version of the Armstrong amendment that changed district law directly, through an act of Congress, bypassing the City Council.

Although it is Dannemeyer who usually makes headlines with his campaign against homosexual life styles, it was Dornan’s rhetoric that proved most colorful during last week’s debate.

Dornan spoke after liberal Rep. Ronald V. Dellums (D-Berkeley) recalled the days when churches were allowed to discriminate against blacks.

When Dornan rose to speak, he recounted his own past work in the civil rights movement, registering black voters in Mississippi and Alabama during the mid-1960s.

“The road to Selma did not lead to the road to sodomy,” Dornan said. “That we would come to a day . . . that we would equate Afro-American heritage . . . with sodomy, it’s a crazy day in this House.”

ON THE RECORD “Taxation without representation is tyranny! And the fact is, these gentlemen attempt to govern without the consent of the governed.” --Walter E. Fauntroy, delegate representing Washington, D.C., in Congress, on Reps. William E. Dannemeyer and Robert K. Dornan.