D.C. Statehood
There’s been an ongoing discussion on progressive blogs regarding the D.C. statehood issue. Some, like Kos, believe that D.C. should be annexed into Maryland or Virginia. Others are suggesting abolishing the federal income tax and creating “Hong Kong on the Potomac.” But how about a simpler approach — why not just grant our congressional delegate a vote?
The idea of dumping D.C. into Maryland or Virginia is just offensive to Washingtonians — D.C. has its own unique culture and history, and I’m not sure Washingtonians (and I’m referring to the real Washingtonians, those of us who love this city and consider it our home, not the transients who come here for government jobs, appointments, or internships and then run back home to Minnesota or wherever when their job ends) would be too excited about suddenly become Virginians, or helping to expand the tax-base of Prince George’s County, MD. We could live in Virginia and Maryland if we wanted to, but we choose to live in the District instead. Some could say that we also choose not to have congressional representation — that’s a true statement, but it misses the point that the world’s greatest democracy purposefully denies the residents of its capitol city congressional representation. How can we argue for democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, if we don’t believe the residents of D.C. deserve adequate representation in congress?
I think a single congressional vote is a fair compromise. It wouldn’t have the unbalancing impact of adding two more votes to the senate, but would be just one more progressive vote in the House. I’m still in favor of last year’s failed plan of giving us a vote and then balancing it out with a vote for a growing red state like Utah. Our population is bigger than the population of Wyoming — we should get some representation, but full representation seems unrealistic to me.
By A. Loikow, January 5, 2009 @ 2:10 am
District residents are the only Americans whose predecessors were residents of one of the original thirteen colonies, fought in the Revolution, and became were full citizens of the United States, and then lost their right to self-government. For almost 209 years, we have not had the right to fully participate in our national government or run our own local/state government. Almost 30 years ago, the voters of the District of Columbia overwhelmingly approved (by 60%) an initiative to hold a D.C. Statehood Constitutional Convention, the first popular initiative ever approved by District voters. Two years later, on November 2, 1982, D.C. voters ratified a Constitution for the State of New Columbia (revised by the Council in 1987), which was transmitted to Congress in September 1983 with a petition for statehood. Since then, District voters have duly elected shadow senators and a shadow representative to promote statehood and voting rights for the citizens of the District of Columbia. Yet, somehow the party has lost the courage to demand that the almost 600,000 residents of the nation’s capital receive the rights enjoyed by every other citizen of these United States and has settled for piecemeal measures that have kept us almost as much a colony as we were in 1776.
In the past, under a hostile Republican administration with a Republican Congress, there may have been some logic to a piecemeal “go slow” approach. Now, though, we have elected a Democratic President and an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress. We want to be full American citizens, with full representation in Congress AND full control over our local and state government. Statehood for the District is the simplest way to accomplish this as it only requires approval by a simple majority vote of each House of Congress.
Article I of the Constitution only requires that “the Seat of the Government of the United States” be a “District (not exceeding ten Miles square).” In 1846, what is now the City of Alexandria and the Arlington County were given back to Virginia and those District residents regained their full political rights. The District residents living on the north side of the Potomac have continued to be denied these rights. In 1973, Congress defined a “National Capital Service Area” in section 739 of Public Law 93-198, the District of Columbia Self-Government and Governmental Reorganization Act, otherwise known as the Home Rule Act. This area meets the requirements of Article I as it includes the essential parts of the three branches of the Federal Government – the White House and most downtown Federal Departments and offices, the Capitol and its office buildings, the Supreme Court and the Mall.
Unlike the various attempts that have been made over the past 35 years to get District residents “voting rights” in Congress, statehood can’t be undone or limited and does not require multiple pieces of legislation and/or amending the Constitution. Statehood is the constitutionally approved way to grant full self-government to American citizens occupying a defined territory of defined boundaries (which are already defined in the constitution for the state of New Columbia which was sent to Congress). In addition, adopting a piecemeal strategy means Congress has to approve each incremental increase in our rights separately – first a vote for a representative in the House, then to have representation in the Senate, then for each little bit of autonomy in running our local affairs, each of which requires immense effort. And, as we have seen with home rule, unless it is done by a constitutional amendment (which then requires a two-thirds vote of Congress and of the states), what Congress gives, Congress can take away. With statehood, we can wage a single campaign to get full democracy AND full representation in Congress that can’t be taken away from us.