CHRONICLES

WHEN THE DISTRICT GOT STRICT RULES FOR A RECALCITRANT CONGRESS

All the details have yet to be ironed out, but there are people -- whose names cannot yet be revealed -- who are working on it.

The subject, of course, is how the District of Columbia can get even with Congress for the way it has been acting recently -- vetoing the District's laws, penny-pinching Congress' in-lieu-of-taxes contribution, and worst of all, withholding statehood for the District.

Many are looking to the lessons of 1765 -- the actions of King George III's Parliament and the American colonies' reaction. Congress already has its version of the 1765 British Declaratory Act, which asserted Parliament's right to pass any law it deemed well pleased to govern the colonies.

Anyway, though the strategy for making Congress cry Uncle Sam obviously is being kept secret, it isn't too much to suggest that the only way to succeed is -- what else -- secession!

Think of the possibilities if the District would only set up its own city-state in the manner of the Free City of Danzig, Monte Carlo or Singapore!

D.C. could pass laws requiring all members of Congress to:

Live in the District;

Pay District income and property taxes;

Be married to their live-in companions;

Park only in legal spots;

Wear identifying tags showing their names, states and political affiliations so their actions, day and night, could be closely monitored by visiting constituents, journalists, and wives and husbands;

Pay for their tickets to all charity functions, theaters and ball games;

Donate their honorariums from speaking engagements to the D.C. United Fund;

RSVP promptly to all invitations;

Attend all parties whose invitations they accept;

Be on time to all seated dinners, no matter when Congress adjourns for the evening;

Contribute money to the Kennedy Center, the National Symphony Orchestra, Mitch Snyder's shelter for the homeless, the Opera Society of Washington, etc., etc. and so forth;

Serve on District school PTAs;

Stay in Washington in the months of August and December so they'll sizzle and freeze as does everyone else;

Cheer the Redskins against teams from all states;

Return all library books;

Accept the District's real estate tax assessments on their property and on property owned by Cabinet secretaries, government departments, embassies and churches, and pay full taxes on same;

Limit the number of marches on Washington;

Pay the actual costs to clean the streets, protect the populace and supply blood pressure medicine to District residents before, during and after such marches;

Serve time as visitors to the sick at the Whitman-Walker AIDS clinic and D.C. General;

Take turns at the Union Station desk with the Travelers' Aid Society;

Abolish inaugural balls;

Vote a minimum wage for all District residents to equal at least four times their mortgage payments;

Annex all of Virginia and Maryland;

Limit themselves to a single office and give their second, third and fourth offices as shelters for battered wives/husbands/the otherwise homeless;

Prohibit all legislators from referring to themselves in the third person and ban the wearing of red ties with dark suits.

Require Congress to give free copies of all books written by their staffs to District libraries, together with book parties for the authors (serving at least Johnny Walker Black Label) and inviting all library-card-carrying patrons.

With such humane and wise legislation passed and enforced by the City Council and a Select Committee of Washington cave dwellers, it shouldn't be long before the Congress would vote to take the District back into the Union on Washington's own terms.

If it doesn't, think of all the money the District can earn by issuing its own stamps (which would sell well to collectors, even in Liechtenstein), minting and printing its own legal tender, and charging Hollywood for the rights to a movie loosely patterned after "The Mouse That Roared."

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.