Definitely true. It’s a partisan issue and each side should recognise it’s a partisan issue. However one side is trying to paint is as a “fairness issue” when that’s at best a secondary consideration. Republicans aren’t objecting to DC statehood because they want to prevent DC from being fairly represented. They probably don’t care much about the constitutional headache. They simply don’t want more Democratic seats in Congress. They shouldn’t put forth any pretences otherwise. But Democrats shouldn’t pretend that their objective is to correct a wrongness inflicted upon DC residents.
But that’s the right argument to make. And both sides should be making it.
Fine. Since you’re going to have to change the US Constitution anyway, make it a non-partisan change. Create two senators and one HOR representative for DC so they’re represented. Create two more senators and one more HOR representative as at-large congressmen tasked with representing the US’s external territiories. But stipulate that each of those three must come from the party in opposition to their DC counterparts. Maintain the political parity, but ensure greater representation for DC and the external territiories. Win-win, right? Would you be happy with that deal? Or would you make excuses that the external territories would be unfairly represented, even though they’ve just had their representation increased?
The last states admitted, Alaska and Hawaii, were brought in together for exactly this reason: one was historically Democrat, the other historically Republican.
We no longer live in that world. Democrats are in the ascendancy and Republicans are demographically disappearing. The only suitable territory to admit as a state for the right reasons is Puerto Rico, and Republicans block that for the same reason they block DC.
The alternatives presented to us are that the two be admitted to statehood for all the right reasons even if that gives an electoral advantage to Democrats or continue to perpetuate historic wrongs because that gives the Republicans the advantage.
You’d have to spend a good deal of time slogging through the sewers to find a position more quintessentially Republican than that.
If the actual residents of the external territories happen to share the political interests of their DC counterparts, how would their representatives who cannot be of that same party be able to represent their interests? I don’t see that the external territories WOULD be getting greater representation; they’d just be a plaything, stuck with “representatives” who might very well be adamantly opposed to what the residents want, so it’s not win-win for them, and on that ground your proposal fails.
In my opinion, Puerto Rico deserves to become a state whenever they ask to become a state. I’ve not followed that issue lately, but I’m not aware of Republican efforts to block any formal statehood request they’ve made. Would you care to elaborate?
I’ll just add that the incredibly partisan nature of your post leaves me unconvinced that hurting Republicans isn’t ahead in your agenda rather than helping DC residents.
Congress has always had the power to give voting rights to Washingtonians, without an amendment.
“In 1867, President Andrew Johnson vetoed a bill granting adult citizens of the District — including Black men — the right to vote. Congress overrode the veto, granting significant political influence to Black Washingtonians. But just as Black voters started to exercise their power, Congress replaced D.C.’s territorial government with three presidentially appointed commissioners.
The goal of that move was obvious: disenfranchising an increasingly politically active Black community. As Sen. John Tyler Morgan of Alabama explained in 1890, after “the negroes came into this district,” it became necessary to “deny the right of suffrage entirely to every human being.”
Vietnam Dinh, Professor of Law at Georgetown testified to Congress that:
“ Congress Has the Authority under the District Clause to Provide the District of Columbia with Representation in the House of Representatives.
The District Clause provides Congress with ample authority to give citizens of the District representation in the House of Representatives. That Clause provides Congress with extraordinary and plenary power to legislate with respect to the District. This authority was recognized at the time of the Founding, when (before formal creation of the national capital in 1800) Congress exercised its authority to permit citizens of the District to vote in Maryland and Virginia elections.”
https://www.dcvote.org/sites/default/files/upload/vietdinh112004.pdf
Ken Starr briefed Congress on the issue. I his opinion, voting is the fundamental right of Americans and Trumps all others and that DC’s lack of voting rights contravenes the founding principles of the Constitution; that the Constitution’s District Clause allows Congress to grant voting rights to Washingtonians; and that legal precedent supports DC voting rights.
;
http://www.dcappleseed.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Voting-Rights-House-Amicus.pdf
Those arguing for the disenfranchisement of American citizens continue to do so without providing a compelling reason why.
Hurting the GOP is just a bonus to doing the right thing for 700,000 citizens.
And your proposal to give the outer territories equal representation (despite ridiculously low populations) only if their representatives are designated Republicans is not only inherently un-representative for those citizens but easily dodged in reality.
We could also make the argument that residents of DC and PR are increasingly representative of a country that is becoming more diverse and, yes, more liberal, with every passing year.
Please excuse my scepticism towards your altruism when you describe hurting the GOP as a bonus.
Your skepticism would mean more if Republicans weren’t standing on a 50-year mound of racism ever since Nixon’s Southern Strategy.
You don’t feel retrocession is a viable alternative? I feel incorporating the city into an existing state represents a reasonable compromise between the alternatives of full statehood and the status quo.
Why compromise? DC residents overwhelmingly want to be their own state. Why does this require a compromise?
Right. From everything I remember about the issue, Maryland doesn’t want DC and DC doesn’t want Maryland.
There are also an insane number of problems that retrocession would introduce. Every local level and state office in Maryland would have to be applied to DC government or added at the state level. Every bond, budget, and financial obligation would have to be redone and the money transferred from Congress or found in taxes. Every law would need rewriting to conform with Maryland’s. The entire school district would need revision, along with every other other department. And if Republicans are batshit crazy over more Democratic Senators, imagine how Maryland Republicans would feel about 700,000 new Democratic voters. Etc. etc.
Nationally, either the number of representatives would have to change or else some other state would lose representation.
It would be sorta like Brexit, except every single aspect of the district would have to change, not just international treaties, and all of it done with local resources, with the entire state bureaucracy tied up in line-item rewriting of the entire state’s laws. The mess would linger for decades and the stench would poison the concept for a century.
Unfortunately the government has been overflowing into NoVa and Maryland for 7 decades. If anything it would need to be extended in order to encompass the seat of the American Empire.
And thus you get situations like the main campus of the University of Maryland being located within the DC Beltway (because the route for said beltway was sent WAAAAY outside District limits except on the far North and South corners), while the Social Security Administration is located within the Baltimore Beltway.
But that very same thing makes it clear that all that they really need a DC for is for the actual seats of the Presidency, Congress and SCOTUS.
Has any participant in this topic actually argued that American citizens should become or remain disenfranchised, or are you simply expressing how dissatisfied you are with the status quo that nobody here defended?
~Max
(out of order)
I agree wholeheartedly.
~Max
Whenever one asks that question, it is wise to consider that one has likely missed something. There are several reasons why this could be a serious Constitutional and practical issue.
The first consideration is that DC is essentially nonviable as an entity on its own - it will always be functionally dependent on the Federal Government and there are real and legitimate concerns about that this could lead to down the line. The tiny size and limited economy, and the fact that it is not generally considered unreasonable for people to move a few miles, also mean that many Americans don’t take the demands very seriously. It is manifestly easy for DC residents to get what they want; they just want it, as it were, from the comfort of home.
This not an inherently unjust request but by the the same hand the Federal District was designed from the ground up as a non-State space. The United States is a country where all land was either a State or had the potential to become so with the specific exception of the deliberately-small Federal District.
Second, the land was ceded from Maryland for the specific purpose of creating a Federal District, and there may be serious Constitutional issues with creating a new state space from that without Maryland’s permission; the manifestly did not cede land to create a new state from it. They could do with Cpngress’s blessing but that’s not what they agreed to originally. I would have to dig into the records on this and see exactly how the original terms were written. Maryland may, in effect, have a functional veto over the proposal whether by right or by law.
Third, trying to do without compromise is likely to accomplish nothing.
Because the Republicans will never agree to any bill that gives the Democrats two more Senators. And the Democrats don’t have the votes to get DC statehood in the face of Republican opposition. Which means statehood is not an option.
So the two real options are giving the residents of Washington congressional representation via retrocession with Maryland or maintaining the status quo and giving them nothing.
Let me make you aware then.
Puerto Rico held a referendum in 2017. They overwhelmingly voted for statehood. (It got 97% of the vote.)
A bill was introduced for Puerto Rican statehood in 2018.
The bill’s sponsor met with President Trump to discuss Puerto Rican statehood. Trump told him “If Ricardo can guarantee us two Republican senators it can be a very quick process.” (Ricardo Rossello is the Governor of Puerto Rico.)
The bill was killed in committee.