Why DC doesn't have the vote

The BBQ Pit
21

There are good political reason why DC will never, and should never, become a state. Considering that the US is supposed to be a collection of states, giving DC statehood would give one state an unfair amount of power over the other states. Not only do they get representation (which they would rightly deserve, if they were to become a state), but they would also house the federal government. The whole point of DC NOT being a state, as I understand it, was to avoid giving any one state more power than any other. Whether or not housing the government would actually reflect additional power is irrelevant; the possibility or even the perception of a possibility of damaging the republic by granting a state more power than it deserves (based on the design of the constitution) is sufficient to deny it.

If a vote were to occur, you’d have a hard time getting states onboard to vote for it. Large states will be upset that the citizens of DC will be so unfairly represented in the sentate. Smaller states will be upset that a lower population gets equal representation in both houses (with the exception of Wyoming, which apparently has a smaller population than DC). Of course, you’ll also get resistence from the red states. No state has anything to gain from voting for an ammendment to allow DC to become a state, so I’d have a hard time imagining more than a handful of votes for it, muchless the requisite 37.

[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF]
If you move to D.C. you have no right to complain, any more than I have the right to demand that a train be rerouted because it makes too much noise even though I made the conscious decision to move to a home next to a railroad right-of-way. This is a law that dates back to 1789, and as such should not be much of a surprise to people. I understand that there is a right to bitch, because if I moved to, say, Maryland, I would certainly bitch about their gun laws with comparison to Pennsylvania, but I would also be cognizant of the fact that I did it to myself and I will not be able to change the law or the culture of Maryland so I should suck it up.

This law will not change, and without the approval of at least 37 other states can not change. None of them have any vested interest in doing so, so you can pretty much put it out of your mind. If this is a problem I would suggest moving somewhere else.
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Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but its my understanding that the original intention of DC was not to house citizens; it was intended to house government officials, foreign nationals/diplomats, etc. Thus, there was no need for representation, as the officials there have a vote in their native state, and the foreigners have no voting rights. That this is not true today is a failing of management, not of design.

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[QUOTE=Blaster Master]
Someone correct me if I’m wrong, but its my understanding that the original intention of DC was not to house citizens; it was intended to house government officials, foreign nationals/diplomats, etc. Thus, there was no need for representation, as the officials there have a vote in their native state, and the foreigners have no voting rights. That this is not true today is a failing of management, not of design.
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If that was the case (I don’t know that is was) the size selected for DC, 10 miles square, was absurdly too large. DC when it was established also incorporated the existing towns of Georgetown, Maryland, and Alexandria, Virginia.

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[QUOTE=Colibri]
If that was the case (I don’t know that is was) the size selected for DC, 10 miles square, was absurdly too large. DC when it was established also incorporated the existing towns of Georgetown, Maryland, and Alexandria, Virginia.
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“No one could have predicted” that DC would become such a large city, population-wise. :slight_smile:

But I agree with those who say the states will never ratify an amendment to make it a state.

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[QUOTE=Lemur866]
It is kind of funny that the people flogging this disenfranchisement issue have only one solution acceptable to them: statehood for DC.

Offer to give the residential areas of DC back to Maryland and they’ll just mumble. Which tells me that DC statehood isn’t about enfranchising people in the nation’s capitol, it’s about getting more Democrats into congress. Or about empowering local DC politicos.

Might as well merge Delaware into Maryland while we’re at it, plus merge Conneticut and Rhode Island. And we can barely find a use for one Dakota, let alone two.
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That is not true. Most people would PREFER statehood to merging into Maryland. Right now all we have is a non-voting congressional delegate (Eleanor Holmes Norton). You may hear more about statehood than anything else because every election cycle we go through the motions of electing 2 shadow senators who will only have any power if they ever give us statehood so they stump around trying to drum up interest in DC statehood. However efforts to retrocede DC into Maryland are hampered by the fact that it would result in a safe Democratic seat in the House at thte next census so the Republicans don’t want it. We also need to get Maryland on board.

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[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF]
Also, some of you are going to think that this is a dick thing to say, but I’m no stranger to controversy so what the hell.

If you move to D.C. you have no right to complain, any more than I have the right to demand that a train be rerouted because it makes too much noise even though I made the conscious decision to move to a home next to a railroad right-of-way. This is a law that dates back to 1789, and as such should not be much of a surprise to people. I understand that there is a right to bitch, because if I moved to, say, Maryland, I would certainly bitch about their gun laws with comparison to Pennsylvania, but I would also be cognizant of the fact that I did it to myself and I will not be able to change the law or the culture of Maryland so I should suck it up.

This law will not change, and without the approval of at least 37 other states can not change. None of them have any vested interest in doing so, so you can pretty much put it out of your mind. If this is a problem I would suggest moving somewhere else.

Some of you will, of course, raise the objection that some people are unable to move. I find it very unlikely that with the absurdly high cost of living in D.C. and the surrounding area that moving to a more rural area would be too terrible a blow, not to mention the drop in the crime rate and the desired representation being major benefits. Find an apartment in rural Virginia or Pennsylvania, rent a U-Haul, and get the hell out of Dodge.
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If I want to work for the federal government, DC is the most convenient place for me to live. I understand when you say I “knew what I was getting into” but my point is that the right to vote in a democracy is a pretty important right even if it is not exercised and we should make efforts to ensure that everone has access to those rights.

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[QUOTE=col_10022]
That is not true.
[/QUOTE]

Based on my personal experience of living in DC for five years, it certainly is true. Most residents don’t want to hear options for representation if it doesn’t involve statehood.

As long as DC insists on statehood instead of some other form of representation, it ain’t gonna happen. And political considerations in the existing states mean representation probably won’t happen anyway.

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[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF]
If you move to D.C. you have no right to complain, any more than I have the right to demand that a train be rerouted because it makes too much noise even though I made the conscious decision to move to a home next to a railroad right-of-way.
[/QUOTE]

Not everyone in D.C. moves there, you know. There are a couple hundred thousand native-born Washingtonians who have been disenfranchised from birth, not because of any decision they made, but just because of where they were born.

(The percentage of Washingtonians born outside the district is of course very high, although it’s lower than several states; Alaska, Arizona, Florida, and Nevada had lower percentages of native-born Alaskans, Arizonans, Floridians, or Nevadans than D.C. did of native-born Washingtonians, and D.C.'s percent of native-born was in the same ballpark as such states as New Hampshire, Wyoming, or Colorado.)

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[QUOTE=Blaster Master]
There are good political reason why DC will never, and should never, become a state. Considering that the US is supposed to be a collection of states, giving DC statehood would give one state an unfair amount of power over the other states. Not only do they get representation (which they would rightly deserve, if they were to become a state), but they would also house the federal government. The whole point of DC NOT being a state, as I understand it, was to avoid giving any one state more power than any other. Whether or not housing the government would actually reflect additional power is irrelevant; the possibility or even the perception of a possibility of damaging the republic by granting a state more power than it deserves (based on the design of the constitution) is sufficient to deny it.
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By this logic, the state of Virginia controls both the U.S. military and the CIA (although Maryland controls the NSA); and, thanks to Senator Byrd, West Virginia has been mounting a creeping coup d’etat for years and years now.

On the other hand, Georgia has all the smallpox, so the rest of y’all better not fuck with us.

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[QUOTE=Larry Borgia]
(Not that I’m a Barry fan, But his popularity is no more a reason to deny DC the franchise than the far worse Tom Delay’s is to deny Texas the franchise..)
[/QUOTE]

That sounds like a fair trade to me. All in favor?

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[QUOTE=MEBuckner]
By this logic, the state of Virginia controls both the U.S. military and the CIA (although Maryland controls the NSA); and, thanks to Senator Byrd, West Virginia has been mounting a creeping coup d’etat for years and years now.

On the other hand, Georgia has all the smallpox, so the rest of y’all better not fuck with us.
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Even if it were the same logic, the difference is the perception. No one perceives VA, MD, or other states as being in control of those or other government agencies. Further, they are controlled by the Federal government which is NOT in those states. However, if the heads of all three of the branches are inside of one single state, the perception of the public would be decidedly different.

It is my view that it is not the same logic; those are government agencies, not the actual head of the government itself. While those buildings do in fact lie outside of the boundaries of DC, they are ultimately headed by, and answer only to the government head in DC (i.e., the CIA, and the Pentagon both answer to the president, not the VA governor or any other power within Virginia’s borders). However, if the president, congress, and the supreme court were all within the borders of a state DC then this state, having its own rights by virtue of being a state (rather than being managed wholely by the congress as designated by the constitution), may be able to exercise those rights in a way that is not fair to the other states.

Plus, this introduces other problems along those lines of states rights. Obviously, if it were a state, there would be a governor (would there still be a mayor as well, or would there be a mayor and not a governor?). Where does the governor’s powers stop and the federal governments begin, and vice versa? If the governor/mayor is doing a poor job in a way that it affects the functioning of the federal government, would the federal government maintain a veto power (effectively crippling its rights as a state)?

Where do we draw the state/federal lines? Is everything residential the state, and everything else federal? Is everything that is federal remain federal, and everything else become state? What about psuedo-federal agencies, like the national archives, the IRS, etc. does the state then get to house these, or do these remain federal property? Essentially, do we end up with speckles of federal property throughout the state, or speckles of a state throughout federal property? I don’t think either of these scenarios is in anyway an improvement to the current situation.

I don’t object to the citizens having a form of representation, but I do object to them become a state. Maybe we give their shadow representative in either house a vote, but that would face another equally impossible to pass constitutional amendment. Maybe we could give the citizens the ability to register to vote for representatives in another state (a neighboring one, like VA/MD, or perhaps any of their choosing), but then you get into the problem of passing another equally impossible constitutional amendment and finding an equitable way to get them properly represented. Maybe we could give them a representative in the house since those are more or less based on the location of populations, and not on the state, and not give them senators since I’d say a senator is decidedly a state’s right… but you encounter the same problem with a constitutional amendment.

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As a former resident who heard a version of this argument in, oh, 1992 or so, I will concur with all above that, fair or unfair, DC ain’t never gonna be no state, and the residents of Montomery and P.G. counties, MD, want to absorb the District about as much as they want to absorb a lungfull of anthrax. D.C commuters like having another state they can flee to.

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[QUOTE=Larry Borgia]
Another vote for making DC part of Maryland, maybe with a small federal enclave.
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Another problem with this idea (besides the fact that Maryland doesn’t particularly want the District, for reasons noted by others on this thread) is that the electoral votes granted to DC by the 23rd Amendment would then devolve upon the rump District (the incumbent President’s family would be the only voters with a legal residence within the new boundary).

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I’ve often thought the “solution” should go the other way: have the Federal government exercise eminent domain over the whole District, and have NO private property left in DC. The district would be run like a large military base, with the Federal government having absolute power to say who can work or reside there and on what terms.

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[QUOTE=scotandrsn]
I would say that it was unwise to zone any part of DC for residential purposes. If everything in the 10-mile square official region were re-zoned for administrative, commercial, and recreational areas only, you wouldn’t have the problem of disenfranchised residents.
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It’s not that big. The land originally ceded to it by both Viriginia and Maryland was that size in total; however, the portion ceded by Virginia was returned in 1847.

Another poster said something about DC not having the vote. DC, although not a state, does have electors for president and vice-president. IMHO, it should not because it’s not a state. On the other hand, since DC does appoint electors, the fair thing would be for all the other populated territories to get the same deal.

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[QUOTE=Apos]
No state is going to take DC: it has a high rate of urban poverty and would add a large new burden on the state taxes without adding much in the way of tax revenue.
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Complete ignorance on your part. DC is one of the hottest real estate markets in the nation with one of the highest education levels in the nation.

I live in DC and I think that the resistance of voting rights from the rest of the country can be boiled down to fear of black people. One hundred years from now, people will still bring up the crazy negro mayor on crack as a reason not to let us vote.

If the obese slack jawed hicks that inhabit all those square states (literal and figurative, I mean for God’s sake you have the Internet now, get some decent clothing online) can vote, so can the people of DC.

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Stephen Colbert’s take, in case you haven’t seen it.

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[QUOTE=Airman Doors, USAF]
The existence of Washington D.C., although not the location, is mandated by the Constitution, Article I, Section 8:

[/QUOTE]

I don’t read it that way:

I don’t read that as mandating that a federal governmental district exist, I read it as it may exist. Even if I’m incorrect, we could give all of DC save for the Mall back to Maryland since the district may not exceed 10 miles square but may certainly be smaller.

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[QUOTE=madmonk28]
…obese slack jawed hicks that inhabit all those square states (literal and figurative, I mean for God’s sake you have the Internet now, get some decent clothing online) …
[/QUOTE]
You forgot “mouth breathing”.

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[QUOTE=BobLibDem]
since the district may not exceed 10 miles square but may certainly be smaller.
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And, as I’ve shown above, the District is smaller than 10 miles square.

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[QUOTE=madmonk28]
Complete ignorance on your part. DC is one of the hottest real estate markets in the nation with one of the highest education levels in the nation.
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As long as you exclude the public school system.

[QUOTE=madmonk28]
I live in DC and I think that the resistance of voting rights from the rest of the country can be boiled down to fear of black people. One hundred years from now, people will still bring up the crazy negro mayor on crack as a reason not to let us vote.
[/QUOTE]

Most of the problem is that DC is out on the political fringe. If the Democratic Party nominated Bozo the Clown for President, he could count on DC’s electoral votes. DC would have to be paired with a counterbalancing territory, as was done with Alaska and Hawaii.

The problem with Marion Barry isn’t that he’s black, it’s that he’s a crook, a demagogue and a crack-head. Did I mention that he was an incompetent and ineffective mayor? I voted for him once, the first time he ran for mayor.