Clinton Turns Limo Into Bully Pulpit for D.C.

With less than a month left in office, President Clinton made an executive decision Thursday that could pose a dilemma for his successor: He ordered the District of Columbia’s new “Taxation Without Representation” license tags be placed on the presidential limousine.

President-elect George W. Bush will now be in the awkward position of having to decide whether to remove the plates and insult some city residents. His campaign did not return calls Thursday, but Bush has said that he does not favor statehood for the district.

Clinton’s decision follows Monday’s protest by a D.C. elector, who withheld her electoral college vote from Vice President Al Gore as a way of drawing national attention to the district’s lack of voting representation in Congress.

“The president is a strong supporter of statehood,” Clinton spokesman Steve Boyd said Thursday. “It’s symbolic, but it’s important.”

Clinton has long voiced support for voting rights in the district but has made no other public political gestures on the issue during his eight years in office. And it was his administration’s Justice Department that argued against a suit by city residents asking the federal courts to bestow congressional voting rights on the district. The case ended in October when the Supreme Court ruled that D.C. residents have no constitutional right to a voting representative in Congress.

Still, Eleanor Holmes Norton, the city’s nonvoting delegate to Congress, called the president’s action “wonderful.” Norton said the president has been a friend to the city, offering special financial packages above and beyond his predecessors.

“It is a fitting finale for the president who has done more for the District of Columbia than any other president,” said Norton, who has been involved in a monthlong effort to get back, at a minimum, the largely symbolic vote she lost when Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in 1994. She challenged Bush to support city residents by not removing the license plates when he takes office.

“It’s one way to show you live here with us,” Norton said.

For two centuries, city residents have died in wars and paid their taxes, and this week, for the 10th time in history, cast official ballots for president. But when Congress meets to make decisions about how the city spends its money and governs itself, district residents argue, they are mere bystanders, second-class citizens.

Over the years, there have been acts of civil disobedience, including arrests and sit-ins in attempts to pressure Congress into approving statehood for the city. And this year, the D.C. Council voted, with the concurrence of Democratic Mayor Anthony Williams, to place the slogan on the license plates to garner attention and thumb their nose at Congress.

The presidential limos already have D.C. tags that read: “Celebrate & Discover.” The new plates became available last month, and residents have the option of trading in their old plates.

“I’m just delighted,” said Sarah Shapiro, the resident who first brought the idea to city leaders, “even though it’s only for a few days.”

Barbara Lett-Simmons, in casting a blank electoral college ballot Monday, called the city’s treatment “immoral, unethical, absolutely wrong and unjust.”

Not all city residents feel that way. The legal arguments against voting representation in Congress date to 1801, when Virginia and Maryland gave up land for the creation of the federal seat.

Eric Rojo, a city resident for 12 years, said people who want a vote in Congress ought to move somewhere else or make friends with congressmen and senators from other states.

“I think it’s a silly issue,” said Rojo, 55, a Vietnam veteran. “We have the same freedoms as the rest of America. The district was created as a base for the federal government. People have the choice to move.”