After Michael Steele’s failed attempt to give the GOP a “hip hop” makeover, many Republicans hoped newly-elected Congressman Allen West could boost the Party’s outreach to African American voters. Today, West expressed his concerns about DC residents’ lack of representation, as Washingtonians don’t have a voting member of Congress. In one of the first votes of the session, the Republican majority stripped the DC delegate’s ability to vote in House Committees, a move West supported.

While West floated the idea of “an exclusionary zone” where “District residents do not pay federal taxes” since they don’t have a voting member of Congress, he went on to say that the African American-majority city and black voters across the country may only have themselves to blame for their political marginalization since black voters consistently support Democrats: