Second-Class Citizens

A few months without representation is intolerable -- except in the District.

NO ONE bats an eye when Maryland officials prepare to spend as much as $2 million on a special election to fill out the term of departing Rep. Albert R. Wynn (D). The prospect of 685,000 people going without a voice in Congress -- even for a few months -- is that intolerable. Yet it's a condition the residents of the District of Columbia are expected to endure day to day, month to month, year in and year out. Maryland's momentary problem is a reminder of the disenfranchisement of its neighbor and the need for the injustice to end.

Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) characterized leaving voters without someone to speak on their behalf as unfair. Mr. Wynn's resignation in June leaves a six-month gap that Maryland officials propose to fill with a special, and costly, election. The U.S. Senate should take note of the eloquent arguments Maryland officials are making about the right of Americans to be represented in their government. It's the Senate, after all, that is holding hostage a D.C. voting rights bill. The measure would add two seats to the 435-seat House, one for the District and the other for Utah. It won approval in the House but was blocked from getting to the Senate floor last September, when it fell three votes shy of the 60 needed to end a filibuster.

It's unconscionable that the Senate -- largely because of Republican opposition -- refuses to allow a full-throated debate on the issue and an up-or-down vote. Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) should call the Republicans' bluff and make them filibuster: Let them explain, hour after hour, why it's okay to deny District residents a basic right of citizenship. District voting rights advocates are working on a different strategy: to get at least three senators to drop their opposition to bringing the bill to the floor. Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va.) continues to champion the bill he authored and believes there's still a chance to resurrect it. Let's hope he's right; D.C. residents, unlike their Maryland counterparts, suffer more than a temporary denial of democracy.