Is voting against the US constitution?

Washington voting right act

Americans have a little moto on their car plates, as diverse as the country itself. When I travel in New England, I am always amused by the contrast between the bold “live free or die” from the State of New Hampshire and the gracious “vacation land” of Maine. Vermont is pure etymology: Vert Mont meaning in French “green mountain” the plates show “The green mountains state”. In Washington DC, the inspiration is all politics and revendication and we read on the cars of the capital city:  “Taxation without representation”. It is a protestation against the strange sitution of the District of Columbia,which, not being a state, has no proper representation at the house. Indeed, DC people have a delegate — Eleanor Holmes Norton. However, she has no right to vote but on a consultative basis. It is kind of token representation — while it is not token taxation, of course. For a country that is both the founding place of modern constitutional democracy and a democracy the history of which started with a rebellion against taxation and issues over representation at the British parliament, it seems weird, to say the least.

Not to mention that DC voters are in majority black, which reminds sore memories of the American history.

Fortunately enough, in a bid for coherence, the Obama administration favored the idea of a voting representation in the Congress for DC, and a bill passed the senate. But in a typical-Americana-style it was introduced along with a companion bill on guns which complicated the issue, which is still pending. The whole thing is obscure enough, and was made darker when constitutional issues interfered: some lawyers at the Justice department decided that the law granting DC voting representation would be unconstitutional. The Attorney General asked for a second opinion. This move, which  might have been expected to be understood as a common sensical one (since not having the right of vote is rather uncomprehensible,) is sometimes regarded as inconsiderate. The attorney general  appears to frame politically what should be pure law. To that extent, his decision to review the first legal opinion of his office, though perfectly legal, is compared to the advices requested from the Departement of justice by the Bush administration over the constitutionality of “harsh interrogation tactics”.

This strange parallel is a measure of the misunderstanding of the role the rule of law plays in democracy. That law, and moreover constitutional law, should be respected by law makers and leaders despite intricacies that are blatlantly against common sense is one thing. That trying to get a second opinion on granting suffrage should be compared to fitting the constitution into the right to torture people is obviously a very different one. Legal formalism might be equal in both cases, the sense of law is obviously radically different.