District of Columbia resident often feel like second-class citizens. We pay taxes and elect a mayor and city council, but the District’s budget can be messed with by Congress, as though the nation’s capital is not a grown-up jurisdiction, but some sort of adolescent venue in need of adult supervision. (The question of whether Congress is acting like a metaphorical adult is another valid issue entirely.)

This is awful on its face, but it’s made worse by the fact that District citizens don’t have U.S. senators arguing their case in Congress, and have just one delegate in the House who doesn’t have full voting power. It’s truly stunning that after the ratification of the 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution, along with the passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, an entire city has been brazenly disenfranchised, denied voting rights in a nation that boasts about being a beacon of democracy. District residents don’t have full voting rights, but are still expected to pay federal taxes, serve on juries and be available to serve in the military.

And now U.S. citizens residing in D.C. are being hit with another insult: They’re being told they’re not even really Americans.

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