Speaking of Rights

Basking in a 10-day recess, most Congressmen are now returning to their constituents to deliver the traditional Fourth of July speeches about "the inalienable rights of each and every American citizen." Yet equal representation and the right to vote do not exist for many people today because of Congressional apathy, partisan politics, and personal interests.

Anachronistic state residency requirements continue to prevent citizens abroad or families on the move from voting; worse, Congressional districts sometimes vary by 100 per cent in size, and Congress seems intent on suspending the Court-ordered redistricting until 1972 when the 1970 census will be available; worst of all, Congress refuses to allow the 800,000 residents of the District of Columbia to have local home rule or representation in the U.S. Congress to eliminate these voting inequities, but, so far, opponents have used procedural irresponsibility to block them.

The least controversial of the three would help extend the vote to Americans who are living abroad or who have moved recently to a new residency within the country. Only 12 states accept absentee ballots from the the three million Americans overseas. And millions who move each year face archaic residency requirements which interfere with their right to vote. It is illogical for mobile or overseas citizens to lose their franchise in national elections, especially presidential elections, and there is no reason why Congress should not pass this legislation before the end of the current session.

But logic sometimes escapes Congress, as it did last week, when House and Senate conferees contrived a compromise redistricting bill that ignored both of the passed bills. Fortunately, the plan had to be ditched when a crucial clause prohibiting "at large" elections was found to be missing.

The purpose of the legislation was to set guidelines for state legislatures in drawing up congressional districts. Congress has always had the power to set guidelines, but until the Supreme Court one-man one-vote ruling, state legislatures enjoyed wide latitude in setting the district boundaries and apportioning population. It was a latitude more often abused than not.

The compromise bill would have frozen present districts, except where a special census was taken, until after the 1970 national census. After that, no state's largest and smallest districts could differ by more than 10 per cent. The proposed compromise plan was outrageously different from either the House or the Senate versions of the bill. The House voted for the 10 per cent requirement after the next census and imposed a 30 per cent limitation on district differences until then. The Senate had voted for an immediate 10 per cent limitation starting the next session of Congress and for a prohibition of gerrymandering in order to ensure compact districts.

The conferees, in short, sought to protect even the most glaring inequalities for the next five years. Inadvertently, however, they left out the clause forbidding statewide elections at large in 1968 and 1970. Since the courts have already ruled unconstitutional the districts in many states and since the "compromise" bill would in most cases prevent the creation of new districts until after 1970, the only remaining possibility would be at large elections--something which any constituency-cartering representative would despite. This oversight will allow the conferees to shape a new plan, and since some standards for 1968 and 1970 must be set if elections at large are to be avoided, Congress has another chance to shape a fair-districting law and restore the Senate's anti-gerrymandering provision.

In the redistricting case, Congress had impeded the implementation of a Court decision. In the D.C. home rule case, Congress must take the initiative and has consistently refused to do so. The President has proposed a replacement of the city's three-man Board of Commissioners with a single commissioner and a nine-man council. The proposal would not give Washington citizens the right to even their own city government, but it would at least centralize authority and attract a competent commissioner.

The proposal was issued in the form of an executive order which either House must reject in 60 days or else it takes effect without amendment. To avoid such a possibility, the traditional anti-home rule factions--Southern segregationists who fear handing their own authority on D.C. matters to the local Negro majority, and local real estate and business interests who benefit from the low taxes--have stymied progress by introducing the President's plan in the form of a regular bill so that it could come under the District Committee and be amended and, in essence, defeated.

May be it would speed the process of extending voting equality if a few Congressmen would listen to their own speeches on "rights" tomorrow.