The Case for DC Statehood

The Democracy Dispatch (Edition #45)

Apr 25, 2022

Welcome back to the Equal Citizens Substack. In this edition, we are going to discuss an often ignored democracy reform: D.C. statehood. Below, we provide a brief crash course on the history and current state of the fight for D.C. statehood. And we also have a guest column from DC Vote’s Bo Shuff and Patrice Snow. DC Vote is one of the key organizations leading the representation fight for D.C. citizens. As always, at the end of this Substack, we share some recent democracy-related news articles.

Before we begin: The Brennan Center for Justice recently published a preliminary report on the negative impacts of a number of recently adopted anti-voter laws. The report includes references to studies and reports from a variety of sources, including from academics, journalists, and activists. The key takeaway: these laws disproportionately affect African Americans, Latinx Americans, Native Americans, and people with disabilities. It’s never been more urgent to continue our fight to protect democracy. You can read the report here.

The Case for DC Statehood:

There are currently 712,000 citizens on the mainland of the United States who have no representation in Congress. While these Americans select electors in the presidential election, they are entitled to neither Senators nor members of the House. Of course, we are talking about those who live in the District of Columbia — Washington, D.C. The absence of D.C. statehood and its subsequent lack of political representation is an affront to any acceptable and fair definition of democracy.

The history of D.C. (non) statehood goes back to the country’s founding, with the writing of the Constitution. Article I Section 8 of the Constitution grants Congress the power to “exercise exclusive Legislation [...] over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may [...] become the Seat of the Government of the United States.” In simpler terms, the Constitution authorized Congress to pick an area specifically for the federal government, as long as the states ceded it. Once the area was chosen, Congress then had exclusive powers to legislate over it, as opposed to the mixed federalist status afforded to other states.

At first, Congress met in cities throughout the colonies, including Philadelphia, Annapolis, and New York. After D.C. became the permanent Seat of Government, though, Congress passed the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801, which designated the area of the District of Columbia and placed it under the control of Congress. With this Act, residents of D.C. lost their Congressional representation. At the time, not many people lived in the nation’s capital, but that would soon change, as the population exploded in the century following the Civil War.

As movements to democratize American elections expanded and won major victories in the first half of the 20th century, an effort to enfranchise the newly bustling city of D.C began to develop — with notable success. In 1961, Congress passed and the states ratified the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution, granting D.C. three electoral votes in presidential elections. And a decade later, President Nixon signed into law the District of Columbia Delegate Act of 1970 and the Home Rule Act of 1973, allowing D.C. residents to elect a non-voting member of the House of Representatives, a Mayor, and a 13-member city council. While these provided improvements to D.C. residents’ representation, the fact Congress had to approve the right to local autonomy is a perfect illustration of the anti-democratic situation D.C. residents found themselves in. They did not have the fundamental right to establish a government for themselves.

If citizens in D.C. hoped to secure self-determination and influence in Congress, the clearest solution would be statehood. This would afford constitutionally protected congressional representation and self-determination to the extent afforded under federalism. A major step towards statehood came in 1979, when Congress passed the D.C. Voting Rights Amendment, a Constitutional amendment which would give D.C. statehood status, including two Senators and one voting House member. Unlike with the 23rd Amendment, however, only 16 of the 38 necessary states ratified the amendment by the 1985 deadline. The D.C. Voting Rights Amendment was thus no longer a viable vehicle for statehood and D.C. was once again denied full representation.

Activism for statehood continued for the following decades. To voice frustration, residents of D.C. even adopted protest license plates that, to this day, say “taxation without representation” (a not-so-subtle reference to the slogan of the American revolution). In recent years, the movement for statehood has really picked up momentum. So much so, that in 2020, and again in 2021, the House of Representatives passed the Washington, D.C. Admission Act (H.R. 51), which would allow the current residents of the District of Columbia to become their own state, known as Washington, Douglass Commonwealth. Though H.R. 51 was stymied in the Senate by a GOP-filibuster, there is no question that D.C. is now closer to winning statehood than it has been in decades.

The Opposition

One of the main arguments that opponents to D.C. statehood express is that giving D.C. statehood goes against the wishes of the Founders, who wanted our government to be located in a neutral location, not a state. This argument ultimately rings hollow, though, for a number of reasons. First, the plan for D.C. statehood (described more below) preserves a section of the current D.C. map for the federal government. So the seat of the federal government would still reside on neutral land. Second, this argument fundamentally ignores that times have changed since the founders laid out their vision for D.C. and the ongoing violations of democratic norms are plainly intolerable. In 1800, there were a mere ~8,000 people living in D.C., compared with approximately 85,000 people who lived in Vermont. Today, the District has over 700,000 residents, giving it a larger population than two other states, Wyoming and Vermont. The Founders never envisioned the District being a large city with hundreds of thousands of residents. Times have changed and our democracy must change with them.

Opponents of statehood raise a few additional objections. First, they often question the constitutionality of statehood, which we will address in the next section. Second, many oppose statehood because partisan ambitions cloud their small-d democratic judgment. Nationally, pundits tend to believe that giving D.C. two Senate seats would add two more Democrats to the chamber, which is currently tied with 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats. After all, 92 percent of D.C. residents voted for Joe Biden in 2020. However, this is a poor argument. Ensuring every citizen has representation is far more important than partisanship. Moreover, no one questions the right to representation of the fewer than 600,000 people who live in Wyoming.

The arguments against D.C. statehood plainly fall flat. For even if the purely democratic argument isn’t enough to convince you, the simple fact is that D.C. residents fulfill the obligations of citizenship without representation. D.C. residents pay the most federal income taxes per capita than anywhere else in the country. And since World War I, 200,000 D.C. residents fought in the United States military, 2,000 of whom died for their country. So the people of Washington, D.C. can pay taxes and send people to war, but cannot have a say in how the money is spent or whether the country goes to war in the first place.

Additionally, D.C.’s lack of statehood has implications for the health and safety of its own citizens. Remember the January 6th attack on our Capitol? If D.C.’s mayor had been able to call in the National Guard like other states’ governors could, the riot may have been controlled sooner and lives could have been saved. In 2020, when Congress passed its first coronavirus relief package, D.C. received millions of dollars less in funding because it was considered a federal territory and not a state. (Note: these latter consequences are reasons why statehood, as opposed to just granting congressional representation, is the preferred demand of activists.)

But Is Statehood Constitutional?

In short, the answer is yes! Even though previous efforts at D.C. statehood have happened through Constitutional amendments, that is not the only way for D.C. to become a state. Recall the language creating a federal capital in Article I Section 8 of the Constitution: “not exceeding ten miles square.” The Constitution sets a maximum area for the Seat of Government, but never mentions a minimum. And according to Article IV Section 3, Congress has the power to admit new states, which it used most recently in 1959 to admit Hawaii. The Washington, D.C. Admission Act would shrink the neutral Seat of Government area to a much smaller zone comprising the White House, the Capitol Building, the National Mall, and similar federal grounds — an area in which almost no one currently resides.

Additionally, the Act includes provisions that would fast track the repeal of the 23rd Amendment, which provides 3 electoral votes, among other things, to the District of Columbia. As these Constitutional scholars explain, H.R. 51 includes these provision so the very few residents of the new Federal District will not have 3 electoral votes.

No other state required a constitutional amendment to be admitted to the union. D.C. is no exception.

D.C. Statehood is a Racial Justice Issue

Washington, D.C. is currently 46% Black, a percentage higher than any other state or territory. Why is this important to acknowledge? First, by denying representation to the people of D.C., our system disproportionately affects Black citizens. And second, if D.C. were to become a state, there is a high likelihood that the state would elect two Senators of color, making an institution that is still extremely white slightly more representative of our nation’s racial diversity.

As we mentioned earlier, if admitted, Washington, D.C. would be the third smallest state, with Wyoming and Vermont trailing in terms of population. Each of these states, which also have two Senators and a Representative, are more than 90% white. This is a consistent trend in United States Senate representation; the smallest states, whose populations are overrepresented in the Senate, are overwhelmingly white. According to one New York Times analysis, “the Senate gives the average black American only 75 percent as much representation as the average white American.” Admitting Washington, D.C. on its own will not fix all of the problems with racial justice and the Senate, but giving the territory the representation it deserves is a good start.

How is Change Being Made?

As stated above, activists have been organizing for D.C. statehood for decades. In recent years, the calls for D.C. statehood have grown even louder. At this point there is a strong consensus amongst D.C. residents that they should be a state. In 2016, 86% of voters in the District voted in favor of having the city council petition Congress for statehood. And as we mentioned before, the House, led by a Democratic-majority, has passed H.R. 51, the Washington D.C. Admission Act, in 2020 and 2021. And while it was blocked in the Senate, the bill had 45 Senate cosponsors — nearly a majority of the Senate and almost every Democrat. But rather than hearing about the current fight for statehood from us, here is a word from two prominent D.C. activists on the ground.

A Word from Bo Shuff (Executive Director of DC Vote) and Patrice Snow (Director of Communications at DC Vote):

Ending taxation without representation was the rallying cry in the formation of our nation’s great democracy. But not only are DC residents denied full voting rights in Congress, but the limited ‘home rule’ local government DC does have keeps Congress as overseers, with the ability to overrule any legislation or budget measure passed by those duly elected officials. This leaves the lives of the residents of DC - Americans - in the hands of a Congress that is not elected by our people, does not represent our residents, and is out of step with our values.
DC Vote is currently organizing to bring full and equal representation for DC residents through DC Statehood. Our plan preserves the area that truly represents our ideals as a nation as the Capital of the United States, encompassing the Supreme Court, Capitol, White House and the iconic monuments. By codifying the residential and commercial areas around this area as a state, we make those ideals real for the people of DC.
At DC Vote, our advocacy is our artistry. We are constantly organizing volunteer and advocacy opportunities through GoGo music festivals, Project Glow, the National Cannabis Festival, and the Emancipation Day celebrations. We believe innovative yet pragmatic programming both locally and nationally will help amplify the message of DC as the Union's 51st state. Because it's not a matter of 'if' anymore but more a matter of 'when'.

Learn more about DC Vote here.

The Democracy Dispatch