Delegates to the United States House of Representatives from the District of Columbia
| District of Columbia's At-large congressional district | |
|---|---|
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| Current Delegate | Eleanor Holmes Norton (D–Washington) |
| Area | 61 sq mi (160 km2) |
| Distribution |
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| Population (2011 est.) | 601,723 |
| Median income | 63,124 |
| Ethnicity |
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| Occupation |
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| Cook PVI | D+41 |
The District of Columbia's At-large congressional district is a congressional district based entirely of the District of Columbia. According to the U.S. Constitution, only states may be represented in the Congress of the United States. The District of Columbia is not a U.S. state and therefore has no voting representation. Instead, constituents in the district elect a non-voting delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives. Unlike residents of U.S. territories, who also elect non-voting delegates to the Congress, D.C. residents pay federal income tax, which in the view of many residents subjects them to "taxation without representation".
Despite lacking full voting privileges on the floor of the House of Representatives, delegates are voting members in U.S. Congressional committees and they lobby their congressional colleagues regarding the District's interests. While the office was initially created during the Reconstruction Era by the Radical Republicans, Norton P. Chipman (R) briefly held the seat for less than two terms before the office was eliminated completely. The seat was re-created almost a century later, shortly before the 1970 elections; Walter E. Fauntroy (D) won the 1971 special election the following March. In January 2007, the House of Representatives adopted H.Res. 78, which permits delegates to cast non-binding floor votes when the House of Representatives was operating in the Committee of the Whole, a procedure that last existed from 1993-1995.
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