DC: The 51st State?
It's a little-known fact that Barack Obama supports statehood for Washington, DC. But local activists are still crossing their fingers for congressional representation.
No group of American citizens has been disenfranchised longer than the residents of Washington, DC. Despite paying federal taxes and fighting in the nation's wars, DC residents have lacked a say in Congress since the District was established. Last year, the DC representation advocates thought they were on the brink of putting that legacy to rest with a bill that would have added one House seat in heavily Democratic DC and another in heavily Republican Utah.
In the end, the bill fell just a few votes short of the 60 needed to defeat a Republican filibuster in the Senate. "Going into the vote, it actually looked like we would have 61 votes," says Ilir Zherka, the head of the DC Vote Coalition, a group of more than 80 organizations working for DC representation. "We were feeling pretty confident." At the time, DC Vote's supporters heard through the grapevine that 10 Republicans would vote with them, but shortly before the vote, according to Zherka, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell stood up in a Republican caucus meeting and argued that the bill was a slippery slope to two additional Democratic Senators and eventual statehood for DC. "At the end of the day the political calculus that he and a few other Republican leaders made was that if [House representation] were successful, it would lead to other wins," says Zherka. "So they wanted to fight this bill as if it was those fights."
Seven of the ten Republican senators voted for the bill but three—John McCain, Thad Cochran, and Gordon Smith—switched to a no vote. Democratic Senator Max Baucus of Montana also voted no, claiming that two additional House seats would further dilute the power of his state's one-man House delegation.
After Obama takes office and the new Congress convenes, Zherka is confident Washingtonians will finally get an elected representative. He expects to have the support of the same seven Republicans, all of whom, with the possible exception of Norm Coleman of Minnesota (who's locked in a recount with Al Franken), will be returning to the Senate. And he'll likely have the support of all seven (and potentially eight) incoming freshmen Democrats, putting DC Vote comfortably over the 60-vote barrier. "We have the votes for cloture," Zherka says. "I'm very optimistic that we will get the bill passed next year and signed into law."
And this time DC Vote can rely on a presidential signature, no sure thing under Bush. Obama voted for the bill in 2007 and DC's non-voting delegate in the House, Eleanor Holmes Norton, has said Obama promised her he would approve the bill. The only thing that appears to stand between DC and representation in the House now are post-passage lawsuits that are sure to follow, for which Zherka says the representation movement is already lawyering up.
The real question is whether or not advocates for representation, including Obama, want to push further. During the campaign Obama was quoted as saying he supports statehood for Washington, a position his transition office confirmed but declined to comment on last week. Statehood gained some local support in the '80s and early '90s (the last time a constitution for the state of "New Columbia" was drafted was 1987), but has never generated the nationwide support needed to pass a constitutional amendment. It remains unpopular nationally today.
Presently, the fight over statehood seems unlikely to get to the point where the nation as a whole weighs in (the final step in approving the required constitutional amendment is ratification by three-fourths of the states). The District can make the argument that its population is larger than Wyoming's and just slightly smaller than Vermont's, North Dakota's, and Alaska's, but because it is so reliably Democratic (92 percent of DC residents voted for Obama) Republicans will likely stop the idea in its tracks. This is not just because it could hand filibuster-proof majorities in the Senate to the Democrats in the short term, but because it could shift the long-term balance of power. (Asked for comment, McConnell's office sent Mother Jones press releases from 2007 in which McConnell is quoted as saying congressional representation of any kind for the District of Columbia is unconstitutional, a claim the DC representation movement rejects.)
Even the DC representation movement isn't pushing the statehood issue. "Ultimately, the goal is to secure full local democracy," says Zherka, which he defines as "full control over local issues and local tax dollars, and full representation in the House and the Senate." And top elected officials in DC are counseling caution. "I don't think we should put something that is just going to be debated and then could die," DC Mayor Adrian Fenty told the Washington Post. DC statehood, previously included in Democratic Party Platforms, was left out in 2004 and 2008, with Eleanor Holmes Norton's blessing.
Even though Zherka sees victory on the horizon, he sees challenges ahead. Economic stimulus, an energy package, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan top the agenda when a new session of Congress convenes in January. An issue that affects 0.18 percent of the population could easily slip through the cracks.
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You can't add states one at a time these days - you have to do it in pairs. How are you going to arrange 51 stars on the flag?
After they added Alaska, nobody wanted the 49 star flags (even though 49 is a perfect square). Result? They quickly had to add Hawaii. Not a bad deal, so what the heck.
Before that they though ahead a little. 1912 saw both Arizona and New Mexico become states.
Not saying the State of Columbia can't happen, but you gotta balance the ticket. Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands? I'm ok with it but every four years those people turn down the offer. How about the NoCal/SoCal split Californian's have always talked about? Virginia and West Virginia decide to patch their differences? Split Texas or Alaska? Merge Delaware into Maryland? Come on people, think.
I think if you spoke with someone aside from Illir Zherka you might find that there is a large population in Washington, DC that is for statehood.
I think that DC should be a state! They pay taxes and all of that for what? No representation? That's a crime in my opinion.
Excellent article -- but it contains a serious error: Creating a state does not require a constitutional amendment, but only a majority vote of both houses of Congress and the signature of the President.
Error
Except that this is the Constitution. To amend the Constitution, "a bill to pass both houses of the legislature, by a two-thirds majority in each. Once the bill has passed both houses, it goes on to the states. This is the route taken by all current amendments. Because of some long outstanding amendments, such as the 27th, Congress will normally put a time limit (typically seven years) for the bill to be approved as an amendment.
The second method prescribed is for a Constitutional Convention to be called by two-thirds of the legislatures of the States, and for that Convention to propose one or more amendments. These amendments are then sent to the states to be approved by three-fourths of the legislatures or conventions. This route has never been taken, and there is discussion in political science circles about just how such a convention would be convened, and what kind of changes it would bring about." ~http://www.usconstitution.net/constam.html
Statehood is actually the most administratively easy (and politically difficult) solution. It requires only congressional action by simple legislation in two parts. The first part redefines the borders of the Federal District as the White House, Capitol and Mall and spins off all the remaining land in DC into a "territory." The second part declares that territory a state. This does not need ratification of the states because the constitution doesn't have to be amended to do it. The sad reality, however, is that not even a majority of Democrats are ready to vote for this solution. Passing the representation bill this coming year is achievable and does nothing to set back the ultimate quest for statehood (either independent, or as part of another state).
I think a good compromise would be a constitutional amendment giving DC representation in the House and only one senator, plus some level of state-like sovereignty to keep Congress from meddling in city affairs.
I live in DC and therefore enjoy standing as one of the disenfranchised. We seemed to turn a corner locally in the last Congressional session when Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) put his weight behind the Utah-DC initiative. Over the last few decades, the nearby VA and MD politicians have either been against us getting the vote or made half-hearted efforts to be supportive. It seemed they felt there was something to lose if DC got the vote, and the big bugaboo was DC imposing a commuter tax on the suburbanites who drive to the city for jobs. But as edge cities in VA and MD have expanded, and the need for metropolitan areas to join together to fight other metroplexes for federal dollars and resources has grown, I think MD and VA may finally be changing their attitudes and recognizing that the mid-Atlantic would be stronger if DC had representation.
Whether the above is a real trend or not, there is another solution that was not discussed in the article or in the comments so far: retrocession to Maryland. This doesn't achieve two new Senators for the Democratic party, but it does give DC residents representation in the Senate, and expands the population of Maryland, increasing its proportionate share of the House delegation. If Maryland would have us, and DC was willing to just be one of her cities again, it could be the cleanest, easiest solution that gives city residents real representation in the federal government.
When DC was just mosquitoes, crack dealers, lobbyists, a chocolate city run by Marion Barry, it was unlikely that Maryland was accept us into the fold. But now we have Mayor Fenty, who like Obama, is a son of mixed-race parents and a political wunderkind, and while we still have poor schools and lots of urban-scale problems, we also are the home of some 1000 political celebrities who focus the world's gaze every day. DC emerges daily as the center of a modern empire, albeit an empire losing its power (and its sanity during the Bush years). Increasingly, the idea that Maryland would reject us is no longer based on the idea that we have too much crime or dark skin, but because we would steal the spotlight from the rest of the state and especially Baltimore, a proud city that has more cool industrial buildings than DC, but dims in comparison in almost every other way as judged by tourists, The Economist magazine, and other lowest-common denominator measures that ignore culture and people. Yet Baltimore is quietly surging, like all of the Eastern cities that were left for dead decades ago by those that could afford to leave or were frightened and left. Those cool buildings are drawing artists and businesses and people who like short commute times. Baltimore is cool! Perhaps we in DC will have to wait until Baltimore and Maryland are just confident enough that they will be able to change DC more than DC would change Maryland.
I say, we were part of each other before, we belong together now, let's just retrocede and get it over with.
I'm just waiting on the day when Governor O'Malley comes to Freedom Plaza and says, "DC, You complete me!"
DC will never be a state. Go study American History. Our founders were smarter than Obama.
We will get DC and Puerto Rico(Dem States) as states when Canada splits and we can get the equivalent of two or three(Republican) states from their western provinces. It is not so far fetched, the last Canadian/French separatist vote was within a few percentage points. The trend is real and it will happen......
We were taught that statehood for DC was precluded to ensure that this enclave of federal property would remain state-neutral, and that rationale remains true today. If people in DC are that craven to be part of a "state", they can, as Sam Kinneson used to say about people in the desert, *move*.
I/we do not want ONLY the one representative in the House; I/we want the 2 Senators, also. In the Senate is where decisions are made about wars, justices, confirmations, removal from office (after impeachment by the House), etc. etc.
We, the about 600,000 residents/citizens of DC need and are entitled to that FULL REPRESENTATION.
Statehood, also would be GREAT, SO THE LAWS PASSED BY THE DC COUNCIL DON'T HAVE TO BE REVIEWED BY THE US CONGRESS
Is a "district of Columbia" the same as Canada's 4 provinces which all are still under the rule of the Queen of England? What is the history of DC? Who does DC pay taxes to at a federal level- UK?
Real simple. Just let them participate as Marylanders so they don't need statehood for representation.
dc shouldn't get statehood until all the crooks in dc local government have gone to jail and paid back what they steal
It will happen along with Puerto Rico and the addition of some of Canada, when the French Territories separate. We'll probably have 54 or 55 states. But it won't happen till then, so the right and left each get something out of the deal.
Thanks Oleg
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