And Justice for All

The irony of living in DC is that while the residents of the hotbed of democracy pay taxes, we don't have voting representation in Congress. And even worse, if Congress decides that they don't like some of the laws we've passed, they can override them. And the current Congress isn't a particular fan of our gun laws. Or legalization of marijuana. Or using DC revenues to subsidize abortions. Or physician-assisted suicide. Or... well, you get the point.

What's particularly maddening is that so many of the Tea Party members -- who's namesakes fought against disenfranchisement and who, in theory, are federalists and therefore support local autonomy -- feel so strongly that what they believe is good for the District of Columbia is more important than what its residents think. Chief among these is Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Chairman of the House Oversight Committee.

While District resident's have long complained about Chaffetz reign of terror, this year they got "woke." We started calling members of Congress to complain about city issues, like late garbage pick-up, since Congress seemed so interested in how DC was run. We started offering to personally deliver letters to Congress for constituents back home, allowing them to remind staff in person of our limited representation while insuring they heard from the people back home.

And we started donating to the PAC "American's for Self-Rule," because in politics, money talks.

ASR's first big event was conveniently scheduled for Tuesday while the kids were at Camp Mom Mom's. So Allen and I dutifully bought our tickets and protested Congressional overreach by sipping margaritas at the H Street Country Club.

And low and behold, it worked. The next day Jason Chaffetz announced that he would not run for re-election.

So we won our first battle but the war continues. Allen and I promise that we will not rest on our laurels but will continue to fight the good fight: one margarita at a time.