D.C. Worried About Supreme's Decision

They may be voluntary searches, but that doesn't stop me from having some serious issues with police going door to door, in an intimidating fashion, asking residents if they can search their homes. With no cause at all.

NBC 4:

WASHINGTON -- A crackdown on guns is under way in the District. Police are asking residents to submit to voluntary searches in exchange for amnesty under the District's gun ban.

The program is starting in the Washington Highlands neighborhood of southeast Washington on Monday and will later expand to other neighborhoods.

Officers will go door to door asking residents for permission to search their homes.

Are All DC Workers Corrupt? It is Certainly Looking Like That

The Georgetown DMV is the latest District government agency to be found to be completely corrupt:

Law enforcement officers raided the D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles branch in Georgetown on Wednesday, arresting one city employee and four other suspects on charges they set up a scheme to sell fake District driver’s licenses.

My assistant recently had a very hard time trying to renew my legitimate registration at that office. It entailed lots of phone calls, faxes and about three hours to get it done. I guess I should have just paid them off. In fact, the woman accused by the FBI was the woman who was my obstacle.

Mayor Adrian Fenty showed up for a news briefing at the scene. He deflected questions about whether the arrests were a further indication of widespread corruption among city employees. Instead, he said they were a sign that security safeguards were working.

DC employees are getting carted off in handcuffs in droves, stealing tax money and even funds dedicated to disabled children.

The DC city workforce might just be the most corrupt group of employees in a Western country.

DC Mayor Proposes $200 Million in Taxpayer Funds to Aid Waterfront Development

DC taxpayers are on the hook to pay a lot of their taxes to private developers already: $667MM for the Nationals' stadium, $50MM to fund improvements in the Verizon Center, $850MM for the flailing Convention Center and another $450MM to finance a hotel to try to make it less of a failure.

That adds up to a little over $2BN in taxpayer subsidies for "development" projects. Yet mayor Adrian Fenty wants to commit an additional $200MM in taxpayer money to redevelop the Southwest waterfront.

Developers have a profit motive. If they see an opportunity, taxpayers do not have to pay for it. If they do not see a profit, then taxpayers certainly should not be on the hook for subsidizing foolish ventures.

DC Track Star Disqualified Due to Her Muslim Garb

From a Wa Post article today:

Juashaunna Kelly, a Theodore Roosevelt High School senior who has the fastest mile and two-mile times of any girls' runner in the District this winter, was disqualified from Saturday's Montgomery Invitational indoor track and field meet after officials said her Muslim clothing violated national competition rules...

The outfit allows her to compete while complying with her Muslim faith, which forbids displaying any skin other than her face and hands.

This issue is complex for libertarians. On the one hand, people should be free to express their religion (I prefer that term to the loaded but media-adopted term "faith," which de facto categorizes the non-religious as lacking "faith"). On the other hand, sports have rules about uniforms and why should one's religion give a competitor a free pass to disregard those rules when, say, nudists cannot also disregard them and run meets in the buff?

The story of Ms. Kelly is a sob-inducing one, but allowing her to disregard uniform rules solely based on her religion either gives religion a privileged place in society or opens the door to anyone objecting to uniform requirements based on similar claims. That is a slippery slope.

DC Mother Kills Her Four Children. Is the State to Blame or the Mother?

This week a horrible tragedy surfaced in DC. US Marshals enforcing an eviction notice found a disoriented woman, Banita Jacks. The home had no furnishings on the entire first floor, which was spray-painted with bizarre writing, and a foul stench permeating the house. When the Marshals went upstairs they found the corpses of Jacks' four daughters, ranging in age from 5 to 17, in an advanced state of decomposition.

Banita Jacks murdered her four daughters and is so sick that she lived with the rotting corpses in her house since, possibly, last May. She is a depraved maniac, yet all of the Washington media is focusing not on what a monster Jacks is but how it was a grand failure of the DC government that these children were murdered. Even an early story on the tragedy quickly (and editorially) posited:

Among the questions: How could Jacks's children disappear for so long without school officials, police or social workers noticing and stepping in to help? Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) promised some answers today.

Today's Wa Post story was 100% about the DC government's failure to prevent this tragedy. Every agency is on the hot seat, but if you read the article you learn that social service agencies tried on many occasions to tend to the family but Jacks did not answer the door. Even the concerned godmother of two of the children gave up and thought they must have moved away. The girls fell out of the school system because Banita said she was homeschooling them.

NPR today had an hour-long show devoted to decrying the state failure in these girls' deaths in which the hosts berated the participating public official that DC needs to do much more to prevent such atrocities. The pressured DC offcial in turn promised much more public (tax) spending to combat this sort of problem, and I am sure much more spending on ineffective programs will come. There is only so much a government can do when a mother wants to kill her children.

The media's treatment of this story is a sad statement of the transfer of responsibility from the individual to the state. DC did not kill those four young girls, their mother did.

A Snowy Day and DC Government Dysfunction

I woke up today surprised to see a coat of white in my yard. Then I got that awful feeling: I need to get to a business dinner tonight. Will the DC government get salt and plows on my street?

Sadly, the answer was No. The snow started at 6 AM and I left my house at 5:30 PM, eleven and a half hours later. I really needed to get to this dinner so I figured that my drive to Connecticut Ave was downhill so I should be okay and the ride back was anybody's guess.

I did get downtown but, as I feared, the ride back was anybody's guess. Even Nebraska Ave was icy and unplowed and not salted. In fact, I did not see one plow or salt truck all night. I managed to get my car within a mile of my house and then hoofed the rest on foot. I live in DC, which proports to be a city and certainly taxes you as if you lived in one.

How can a city completely break down with a few inches of snow? 14 hours after the start of snowfall, there was still no response.

I am excited to make my mile snowy walk tomorrow morning at 7 to fetch my car so that I can be on time to my meeting.

DC Public School Reform: The Good and the Bad

The DC public school system spends $18K per student annually yet ranks dead last nationally in terms of student achievement. Even worse, its employees are a den of thieves who are so craven that they routinely steal funds raised for student activity clubs. The most craven theft was from a chess club for troubled students that had miraculously catapulted them into a national competition. Sayonara chess club, as

Business manager Sandy Jones ripped off most of the $73,000 that had been donated on behalf of the chess team, according to the Post investigation and federal authorities.

Jones is accused of using the school's ATM card more than 100 times to steal from the chess fund.

Enter energetic Mayor Adrian Fenty and new schools chancellor Michelle Rhee. They are tackling the right issues but as a taxpayer my disappointment is that every problem they solve costs more money, even as the schools lose students and therefore, in any rational world, should cost less.

The Good: Rhee wants to fire a third of the central office employees because they are worse than useless. One woman she wants to fire has cost the District $500K per year educating one student because the employee never filed the proper paperwork.

The Bad: The DC Council opposes Rhee's initiative and views the DCPS as the employer of last resort. Chairman Gray wondered, "what will happen to these people." And the firing will cost $6 million in severance payments.

The Good: Rhee has re-evaluated the insane $1.2 billion allocated to remodeling half-empty schools, many of which need to be shut, that the Council had approved. The remodeling plan was to remodel all of the schools, which overall are at about 50% capacity, and then at a later date close schools. Rhee wants to close 24 schools first, then renovate the existing ones.

The Bad: Somehow this smart move will cost DC taxpayers another $31.6 million over the current budget.

DC Tax Theft Mastermind is My Neighbor

DC is not a city of tear-downs replaced by McMansions. But there was one in my neighborhood and-- surprise-- it belongs to Harriett Walters, the mastermind behind the theft of $31 million and counting from the DC Treasury.

To compound on the scandal, the assessment office is a den of favors and out of control discretion. I have a friend in Logan Circle who was unhappy with her rapidly appreciating assessment and taxes. She went through the proper channels and her appeal was rejected. Then she called the assessment office and (in a morally compromised way) affected an African American accent and decried gentrification. Lo and behold her assessment was on the spot reduced by 50% by the woman on the phone.

I can only imagine what the friends and relatives of that woman pay in property taxes.

Childe Harold, R.I.P.

Sorry, I'm a few days late on this. But I wanted to give a shout out to the closing of my favorite DC restaurant. First, the real Stoney's. Now this. I'm going to drink myself into a stupor tonight. That has nothing to do with the Childe Harold closing. I just thought I would tell you my evening plans.

Before they became limousine famous, Emmylou Harris and Bruce Springsteen played in a litany of run-down, no-name joints, where small, unsuspecting audiences got that rare chance to see, hear and touch undiscovered genius.

In Washington, that joint was the Childe Harold, a cozy, wood-lined saloon in Dupont Circle, where, in its heyday, patrons filled every nook and cranny, the bathrooms reeked of marijuana and everyone talked for years after about whom they saw perform there.

DC Police Find a New Way to Scare People

"The Rumbler" is a new device installed on MPD marked cars. It "vibrates everything" within 200 feet and is being used in conjunction with sirens and lights to force motorists to yield to police cars.

I would have less issue with The Rumbler if it replaced the urban nuisance of constant police siren blaring, much of it probably unnecesary, at all hours. Instead, this device will be an additional nuisance. If it shakes anything within 200 feet, then won't it also rattle windows of homes? From the Wa Post today:

With a pair of high-output woofers and an amplifier, the Rumbler is not louder than a regular siren. It gets its message across with low-frequency sound waves that shake everything, including rear-view mirrors.

The Rumbler is meant to be used judiciously, in situations where motorists should pull over to make way for the police. It is timed to turn off automatically after 10 seconds. Still, police officials said, some people might be startled when they first experience it. And it remains to be seen if the public will view all that shaking as a helpful warning or just a nuisance.

Hit & Run post on the subject here. To assess the odds of police using force "judiciously" go here.

A Note from the Nanny State- DC

In a city whose government can't seem to get the basics right, such as providing working fire hydrants, these two competing stories in the Northwest Current got my attention. [No link as they do not have an online edition]. The headlines and excerpts are thus:

"Council Mulls Ways to Up Financial Literacy"

The DC Council has taken an interest in student's financial literacy in hopes that teaching teenagers about principles of lending, borrowing, savings and credit will help them adopt sound financial practices as adults.

"National Test Show Low Literacy Level in DC"

More than half of the students sampled, 62% [I would call that two-thirds] scored below basic in reading.

I would think that the DC schools would want to try to make their students literate before they tried to make them achieve anything else. Financial aptitude is a ridiculous goal for students who cannot even read. And it is also a huge expansion of what we expect public schools to teach.

Council member Mary Cheh is intoducing this legislation, and she has shown herself to be a Nanny State nightmare. She has also led legislation to ban pay-day lending and trans-fats.

Efficiency Through Government

From the Washington Post:

At Metro's headquarters in downtown Washington, the lights pop on at 5:30 every weekday morning. Hours before the masses arrive for work, the building glows like a silent, hulking eight-story spaceship.

Every evening, most employees go home at 5, but the lights stay on for three more hours, bright enough that passersby can see the artwork in individual offices. No "Starry Night," apparently.

[...]

Used to be, the lights were on all the time. About two decades ago, Metro installed a computer system to control them, which was considered energy-efficient at that time, officials said.

Needless to say, no one thinks that anymore

Full article here.

Death to the corporate, The yuppie scum cloud up the earth, Shine people shine, And never abandon your turf

Tired of all the douchebags in DC? Join the fabulous Anti Yuppie Kickball Guerrilla Front. Burst those kickballs on The Mall. Make those Young Professionals cry. But most importantly, have fun.

Special thanks to Davey Allday, Resistor Drinker Extraordinaire.

New DC Schools Head Boldly Goes Where No Man Has Gone Before: Ending Lifetime Union Employment

In urban school districts, liberal activists espouse two contradictory policies. They believe that schools should educate their students well, yet they also endorse the position that no school employee can ever be fired as they support the teachers' union.

New DC schools Chancellor Rhee wants to change the terms of the debate, and kudos to her.

As the initial piece of her strategy, Rhee has begun drafting legislation that would ask the D.C. Council to suspend personnel laws so that the chancellor would have the authority to terminate employees without having to reassign them to other jobs.

But the DC Council that was all over school reform in the election is already showing signs of cowering to union pressure. Member Harry Thomas of Ward 5, whose schools are the worst in the nation, is continuing to advocate the government as the employer of last resort. Of his coversation with Rhee:

We talked about labor union roles. I want to ask her about issues of [the] rights of employees who are fired. Where would they go? What would they do?

How does anyone who is not on a 30 year, cannot-get-fired, pension and health insurance gravy train answer that question? I don't know. Most of us expect that if we don't perform we will be fired, many of us have been fired, including me, and we lived to see another day. Most private sector employees have switched jobs six or seven times and we somehow survive. If the teachers that the DCPS are employing are so unemployable that Thomas has to worry about them then that gets right back to Rhee's smart demand to be able to fire them.

George Washington: Nation's Most Expensive School

As a graduate student at a rival private university in Washington D.C. I often slip into a Seinfeldian like question of what’s the deal with George Washington. Obviously it's paying the most expensive undergraduate tuition in the country to go to a school ranked 54th nationally. Just how much will it set back an incoming freshman in 2007 per year? $50, 630. Part of this the University says is because of its relatively small endowment of $1 billion in comparison with Princeton’s $13 billion, but perhaps it is because of GW's aggressive growth plan in NW, which in 20 years hopes to expand the university’s size by 2.5 million square feet in accordance with D.C. zoning policies. Hey, as long as they have rich kids too stupid to go the Georgetown and to stuck up to attend a state university, good for them.

A Post On a Very Sweaty, Hot and Buggy Night in DC

Normally none of us TtP posters post on Saturday night, as we are being libertarians and smoking, drinking and having sex. But today was so freaking hot and humid that many of us, like me, are stuck at home alone as no one wants to go out.

I knew that the day's weather would be a challenge when I went downstairs this morning and saw that all of my windows were full-on condensation on the outside. Then I looked at the humid-o-stat that I have outside, and it read 70. I have never seen it that high and 80 is the peak. I guess that beyond 80 we need to have fins and gills to survive.

After my coffee, at 10, I had a vision that I would have a completely sedentary day, and that thought made me feel crappy. So I hauled my ass onto a three mile very hilly hike in Rock Creek Park. Jesus Christ, within 10 minutes I was rationing my water. I got through it a bit dazed and when I ended up at the community gardens on Oregon Ave I commandeered a hose to hose myself down.

I was relieved to get back into my AC but had an insane desire to procure a Vace Italian sub for dinner, as I did not want to cook. So at 4 I started up the Vespa and in the ten-minute ride to Cleveland Park my pants were soaked through with sweat, as was my shirt. Cleveland "No Park" had tons of parking spaces, as most people were out of town or at home.

So I got the Vace sub and survived this day in DC.

Mandy Moore Back Together with Andy Roddick?

If that reads like a vapid celebriblog headline, well, that's because it is. I normally don't get my celeb news the dead-tree way, preferring repeated visits to The Bosh or Hollywood Tuna. Alas, today I had to go downtown, and picked up copies of the WaPo and Politico to bide my time.

The WaPo reports Mandy Moore was spotted

...sipping "extra dirty" martinis[*] and ordering a protein-heavy lineup of rockfish, red snapper and Kobe beef with four friends at Georgetown's Mie N Yu Monday night.

Meanwhile, the Politico notes that Andy Roddick, ,

...and his coach, Jimmy Connors, are staying at the Ritz in G-town. Roddick just loves walking around G-town, as he did Sunday afternoon.

He's in DC for the Legg Mason tournament, which is most noted as the tourney that draws fewer good players and more nobodies than any other. (To illustrate that point, Legg Mason never even succeeded in dragging humorless DC d-bag Pete Sampras home to Rock Creek Park.)

So Moore and Roddick, huh? Both in Georgetown. Same time. Coincidence? Or are they rekindling things after more than three years apart?

I pretended to be someone trying to write like Chuck Klosterman about celebrities and DC here. Get Legg Mason tickets -- I've only gone before when I got free tix -- here.

*About this extra-dirty martini thing... I went out with some friends last night, and several ordered this drink. They're friends and wonderful people, but I just about wanted to ram the stem of their glasses into their eyes. Who the hell wants to drink a glass of gin that has the visual clarity of goldfish-bowl water? Who? Why?

A.V., R.I.P

The A.V. Ristorante, a DC landmark for nearly six decades, is closing up shop this week. The owners are earning a well-deserved reward for sticking with their fringes-of-downtown business, selling to a developer for untold sums.

Friends first took me to the A.V. in the early 1990s, when I was an undergrad here in town, and the restaurant's New York Ave. neighborhood was beginning to become less dodgy. (For those who remember, these were also the days of Mt. un-Pleasant, the un-Social Safeway, the old 930 Club, and the legendary DC Space.)

Though the city around it has changed, the A.V. -- to its credit -- never did. From today's WaPo:

In pinstriped, blow-dried, ever-ceremonial Washington, A.V.'s was unabashedly devoid of artifice, a place where a hardhat could sit next to a congressman, and both could end up sighing and looking at their watches as they waited for the famously surly waiters to bring their dishes.

In recent days, patrons have come for a last look at the marble fountain of Neptune astride three horses in the courtyard; at the suit of armor in the front window; at the golden porcupine fish inexplicably dangling over the cash register.

I made it to the A.V. one last time about ten days ago. The food was better than it had been the last time I dined there two or three years ago, though not as good as it had been a dozen or so years back.

My favorite A.V. memories were picking up a pizza there with my girlfriend on a hot summer night and bringing it down to the Mall for a quiet park-bench dinner at dusk -- with frisbees casting long shadows as they cut through thick pollen in the air -- or heading to the back bar after a gut-busting multi-course feast to sip one of the restaurant's signature liquers, or dining in the kitschy, fountained summer terrace.

Will the DC area ever seen anything like the A.V. again? Probably not. Just in case, though, I'll keep tabs on where A.V. regular Antonin Scalia ends up getting his inexpensive Italian grub.

Will United Follow the Redskins Out of the City?

It might be an idle threat, but it doesn't take an inside source at D.C. United to understand that they feel they've been burned on the stadium deal. Ideological objections to subsidized stadium deals aside; this looked like a great opportunity to get a soccer only stadium built in one of the District's poorest Wards.

Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's administration had been negotiating for months with D.C. United's principal investor, real estate magnate Victor A. MacFarlane, over the team's proposal to build a 27,000-seat stadium in Ward 8, just across the Anacostia River from the Washington Nationals' new ballpark.

But the negotiations stalled over the financial terms. Although United offered to pay for the $150 million stadium, it asked for about $200 million in city subsidies, including roads, tax incentives and the right to develop additional land, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations were private.

If I were a local United fan (D.C. area) I'd worry the team may move 30 miles north up the Baltimore-Washington Parkway if some stadium deal doesn't get worked out. One way or another, they will not be playing at RFK for much longer.

Full article here.

DC Property Taxes Threaten to Destroy Why We Live Here

The Wa Post today had an article that (for once) outlined the problems that DC businesses have in paying onerous DC property taxes.

In a storefront that once housed his great-grandfather's hardware store, Paul Ruppert and his mother, Molly, manage an art gallery, theater and music hall. Theirs is an unexpected pocket of bohemia in a District neighborhood defined by brick-faced walk-ups and the gray behemoth that is the Washington Convention Center.

After 15 years, the Rupperts are closing their music venue and a cafe, and they may shut the rest by year's end. The reason: an expected fivefold increase, from $52,000 to $269,000, in the 2008 property tax bill for the enclave's three buildings and an adjoining parking lot.

The assessments of many properties have risen incredibly. Council members are proposing a small business break or a cap in the rise, but the only fair way of dealing with this issue is to across the board lower DC commercial tax rates while not targeting any specific business, such as Ben's, with a lower tax rate than others have to pay.

The DC Arsonist's Motive Finally Revealed, and It Will Surprise You

For three decades Thomas Sweatt, a 15 year employee at the New York Avenue KFC in DC, set fires, killed people and evaded the police. The Washington City Paper has an absolutely riveting article about Sweatt and what motivated him.

The City Paper reporter wrote to him in jail and got amazingly rich responses. It is a long article but worth the read. What the MSM, like the Wa Post, will never report, yet the City Paper reveals through Sweatt's own letters to the reporter, is that Sweatt the church-goer was a closet homosexual and that tension motivated his arsons. The Wa Post is too careful to not tread on the gay theme, and in this case it is totally relevant, as Sweatt's repressed sexual feelings basically made him an insane arsonist and was his motivation. From the City Paper article, words from Sweatt:

I was working at Holly Farms (Restaurant) off Geogia Ave + Decatur and I could walk home from work if necessary. I had a special friend, we use to go to clubs almost every night drinking and smoking. We had a nice time but there was always this need to be loved by young guys on the street. I wasn't a Thug but was attracted to street life. So, after leaving the Clubs + bars he would take me home and ask if I needed the car for the next day. Of course I'd say yes. But that same night I went cruising up Geogia Ave and picked up this young guy named Tyrone. We became best of friends until I became obsessed with him which drove me to set his house afire, actually his aunts house on Peabody + 3rd. She was slightly injured and the house was damaged just the basement where he lived. I was glad she didn't get hurt. Well Tyrone was a boxer and very handsome and he use to come over my apartment on Wednesday night to watch Dynasty TV Show together. The night before the fire I went inside the basement of the place he live and took all this clothes, tennis shoes (some of which I bought for him). He wore a size 12 shoes. That was attractive to me and I would actually go to bed with His shoes on my pillar and to smell the odor.

How did the City Paper scoop the Wa Post?

Senator From State Too Incompetent to Prevent One of Its Major Cities from Being Submerged Underwater Wants to Tell DC How to Run Its Schools

From today's Washington Post:

U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu's office acknowledged yesterday that she has blocked a vote on D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty's schools takeover legislation, citing concerns about the bill brought to her attention by Board of Education President Robert C. Bobb. Scott Schneider, a spokesman for Landrieu (D-La.), said the senator wants to ensure that the District's state education functions operate with enough autonomy from the rest of the school system.

You know, the takeover plan that the DC City Council, elected by DC - not Louisiana- voters, has approved. It's bad enough Republicans trampled on homerule, now the Democrats are doing it too? Senator Landrieu should focus her attention on improving her corrupt, incompetent shit-hole state and leave DC alone. I hate to say this, but I agree with Mayor Fenty:

In a statement, he said, "Any further delay to the implementation of our school reform act not only subverts the will of the elected government of the District of Columbia, it further delays the government's ability to prepare for the first day of school and other critical management decisions."

And Now to ABC's Expert on Pimps and Hos, Bare Lee Legal

If you're like me, you're on the edge of your seat waiting for ABC News to out more people who have asked the DC Madam for, uh, a helping hand. You know, people like Bush's abstinence czar. Of course, outing people who use the services of sex workers raises some serious privacy issues. And when the outer is an (alleged) sex worker, it raises some serious integrity issues as well. So what do the hos think about this, I'm sure you're asking. Good question. Fortunately, they've started a new blog to cover the scandal and other issues. It's aptly titled, www.BoundNotGagged.com.

From their opening post:

In the story of alleged DC Madam, Deborah Jean Palfrey, one voice is conspicuously absent: ours, and our lips are, despite what you may have heard, hardly sealed.

We’re a group of educated, Internet-savvy, politically-game escorts, and we aren’t for hire. (Not here, anyway.) We’re apparently the exception to the rule, but for us, this is just business as usual. Of course, rich and powerful men want access to erotic companionship. Of course, Washington is a hotbed of hypocrisy. We know this not because we’ve been privy to really fantastic pillowtalk, which some of us have, but because we work the halls of government by day, as well.

We want to talk to you, but we might have to do it in private. We might have to do it in the dark. We might not be able to tell you our real names, but that doesn’t mean we have to be quiet about it, either.

We’re Deepthroated, bound, maybe, but certainly not gagged. And here, we’re going to go down- and dirty on Washington.

Via Stacey at the Desiree Alliance. Bonus Bill Frist "Fristing" joke here.

Lily Allen Hates, Flaunts Smoking Bans

Lily Allen gave her fourth-ever booze-free show last night, treating me, Minerva, and the rest of the sold-out 9:30 Club crowd to a great set that included all of Alright, Still, a couple of new tracks, and two covers. (The first was a too-long Keane song; in the second, she actually managed a near-impossible achievement: making a Deborah Harry song, Heart of Glass, palatable.)

Allen recently gave up onstage boozing after delivering a rambling anti-Bush and anti-Blair tirade. She's now channeling her enegeries to flaunting stupid smoking bans (check her left hand in the photo above, from last night's show). If you think that's accidental -- I counted her smoking at least three fags -- check out her anti-ban comments from Saturday night's show in Toronto.

Full show audio, along with photos, here courtesy NPR.

Fanny Pack Season is Here, For Good and Bad

DC is known for its gorgeous Springs. Friends and relatives from all over the country and abroad are emailing me to ask if Spring is here, are the cherry blossoms out, etc. Yes and yes, it is all very beautiful, but in Spring another phylum also blossoms: the tourist.

When I travel, I try to be a cool tourist, and this is not hard to do. Rule number one is not to arrive on a diesel-spewing "Christian Tours" bus that idles for hours on Connecticut Avenue while its dazed herd takes in the sights. Tonight, driving by the Zoo, I saw the tourist masses with their baggy jeans and fanny packs.

Speaking of the Zoo, I love to watch the Mennonite tourists who frequent it in the summer. They are like the Amish, in fact I really don't know how they are different, but they are interesting to watch. Interesting in that you get to see what your life would be like if you had had five children by the age of 30. You and your Mennonite husband would be wildly overdressed for the heat, with mandated bonnets and hats, sweating, corralling the children before you get back on the bus to Pennsylvania, where you would get back to working the land and being confined to your gender roles.

The tourists give me grief but they also give me delight as I can rejoice that I am not one of them! I live here! Yahoo!

The Ballot or The Bullet

DC residents get neither. I ain't one of them constitutional scholars, but it seems pretty clear - like beyond dispute - that Congress does not have the power to give DC a representative in Congress. The Constitution clearly states, "The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States." DC is not a state, and if the founders had intended non-states - cities, villages, ghost towns, big churches, strip bars, etc - to have representation in Congress, then they would have added "and other entities that Congress chooses" after "the several States." Yes, the Constitution gives Congress the power "to exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over Such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may...become the Seat of the government of the United States." But there is no way the writers meant that this exclusive legislation could violate other parts of the Constitution. If Congress has the power to give DC a seat in the House of Representatives, as many falsely believe, then it also has the power to ban books, search people's homes without warrants, and deprive people of their liberty without due process in DC. Exclusive legislation means just that. Congress sets the laws of the nation's capitol. Those laws - like laws anywhere in the U.S. - can't violate the Constitution. Letting DC residents vote in Virginia and Maryland would be perfectly constitutional. Giving us our own Representative in Congress is grossly unconstitutional. Discuss.

Another Senseless DC Liquor Law

I am coordinating the catering for a non-profit event and encountered yet another inane DC liquor law. Our group wants to host a dessert function with wine and beer. But that is not legal under DC law, which mandates that "savory foods" be served with any catered event that also serves liquor. The subtle regulatory distinction between a piece of cake and shrimp-on-a-stick defies my comprehension. Only a regulator could think of that and make a law around it.

This senseless regulation and so many others demonstrate the need for Leo's Law: that for every new law, we take another one off the books. There are so many dumb laws out there that you could swipe thousands off of the the DC list and no would notice. Sort of how you could fire thousand of regulators and no one would notice.

Safety Politics First

DC Councilmember Jim Graham is at it again. He likes to wrap his political decisions in the cloth of public safety. Usually. Except when undermining public safety is in his political interest.

Responding to e-mails, telephone calls and letters from senior citizens across the District, D.C. Council member Jim Graham introduced legislation yesterday that would eliminate written and road tests for drivers 75 and older.

First, he read the political tea leaves and helped drive smokers out of private bars into the public streets where they can't be avoided. Then he realized he could wrap up the parent vote by driving teenagers out of regulated, law-abiding nightclubs into illegal speakeasies, back alleys and house parties. Now he's bowing to the geriatric lobby and making it easier for Alzheimer-ridden, heart-attack-prone senior citizens to drive. Clever. Say you're making the public better off while you actually make them worse off, and sit back and collect the votes. This guy is smooth. Bow-tie smooth.

Full story here.

Appeals Court Strikes Down DC Gun Laws

It is, as of this very moment, legal to own a fully assembled handgun in one's home in DC. The DC Court of Appeals struck down the District's gun laws this morning on Second Amendment grounds. From the decision:

Appellants, six residents of the District, challenge D.C. Code § 7-2502.02(a)(4), which generally bars the registration of handguns (with an exception for retired D.C. police officers); D.C. Code § 22-4504, which prohibits carrying a pistol without a license, insofar as that provision would prevent a registrant from moving a gun from one room to another within his or her home; and D.C. Code § 7-2507.02, requiring that all lawfully owned firearms be kept unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock or similar device. Shelly Parker, Tracey Ambeau, Tom G. Palmer, and George Lyon want to possess handguns in their respective homes for self-defense. Gillian St. Lawrence owns a registered shotgun, but wishes to keep it assembled and unhindered by a trigger lock or similar device. Finally, Dick Heller, who is a District of Columbia special police officer permitted to carry a handgun on duty as a guard at the Federal Judicial Center, wishes to possess one at his home. Heller applied for and was denied a registration certificate to own a handgun. The District, in refusing his request, explicitly relied on D.C. Code § 7-2502.02(a)(4).

Essentially, the appellants claim a right to possess what they describe as “functional firearms,” by which they mean ones that could be “readily accessible to be used effectively when necessary” for self-defense in the home. They are not asserting a right to carry such weapons outside their homes. Nor are they challenging the District’s authority per se to require the registration of firearms.

[Ellipsis]

[J]udicial lenity cannot make up for the unreasonable restriction of a constitutional right. Section 7-2507.02, like the bar on carrying a pistol within the home, amounts to a complete prohibition on the lawful use of handguns for self-defense. As such, we hold it unconstitutional.

Wow. Whole thing here. Note that one of the plaintiffs is this guy.

Thanks to my my ConLaw professor for the tip.

Update: Cato's Tim Lynch has analysis and implications here.

It Looks Like Your'e Going to (Run) a Funeral (Home)

DC resident Keith A. Ridley IV: "Maybe I am."

Context. Related backstory. Post title inspiration.

DC May Make Your Car Non-Smoking, But That's Only the Half of It

Via a source* (slightly edited, with emphasis mine):

Councilmembers Marion Barry and Mary Cheh introduced a bill today to prohibit smoking in private vehicles when children are present, even when the windows are down. Punishment will be in the form of a fine, which would not be collected if the adult enters a smoking-cessation program.

"I sincerely believe the health benefits will far outweigh ... privacy rights," said Barry.

Yep, a felon facing DUI charges is proposing legislation that says a person smoking in his own car could get sent to Smokaholics Anonymous.

*My source wanted me to mention that even though she favored the original DC smoking ban, she's downright horrified by this one.

Update: According to Fox News here in DC, the proposed fine is $100.