Last week, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray, five D.C. council members, and a delegation from the non-profit group D.C. Vote flew to New Hampshire to support a resolution supporting statehood for the District. After Democratic State Representative Cindy Rosenwald proposed a bill in the New Hampshire State House supporting the bid, D.C. leaders began their nationwide tour promoting District statehood.
Despite preliminary support, Gray and his team likely sensed that the hearing in front of the Committee on State, Federal Relations and Veterans Affairs held a foregone conclusion when its chair, Republican Alfred Baldasaro, rattled off Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution seconds into the hearing. The section establishes D.C. as “the seat of government” in the U.S.
Since the 2010 elections, Republicans have dominated the New Hampshire House by a count of 290 to 93. The group is characteristically conservative, so it came as no surprise when the District delegation was questioned on issues superfluous to the legal or ethical implications of statehood. The bill supporting statehood was defeated 8-3 in committee. While Democrats hope to circumvent the vote by bringing it before the entire State House, it seems destined to defeat.
Baldasaro’s chief reasoning behind the dissenters’ votes is in constitutional concerns with statehood. An accurate interpretation of the test and full understanding of District history prove these worries baseless. The simplest route to statehood would be a constitutional amendment. One of these was actually approved by Congress in 1978, but was ratified by only 16 states before its time limit expired. A simpler route in today’s political climate would be to abide by the existing Constitution, and shrink the District of Columbia to only certain federal buildings and landmarks and designate the balance as a separate state. This would satisfy the text’s assignment of a seat of government “not exceeding ten miles squared.” Indeed, the federal government has shrunk the size of the District twice before without Constitutional challenges. Regardless of what reactionary state legislators say, D.C. statehood is anything but unconstitutional.
Additionally, congressional oversight of D.C. affairs has invited attacks from conservatives normally committed to local government and federalism. Some of the highest-profile issues have involved abortion, a state issue elsewhere. The federal government has also asserted its authority in areas like the Occupy movement and funding for civil services. Congress often only passes D.C. budgets after adding additional amendments—budget riders, as they’re called—designed to placate political pressures by representatives. Nowhere else in the nation can national representatives use their control over local issues to score political points back home.
But most appalling is that the District’s citizens have no voice in the national legislature. D.C. is less than 5,000 people away from being as populous as Vermont, and passed Wyoming’s population long ago. It is the most unequal city in the nation in terms of income, and is plagued by a broken educational system and high crime rate. This disproportion makes it more necessary for D.C. residents to have a proportional voice in the national legislature. The lack of representation is a betrayal of the U.S. democratic promise that every citizen should have a voice in government.
If any critics of D.C. statehood observed this lack of representation in their core conservative constituencies, they would be the first to protest. This crystallizes the irony in the New Hampshire House’s decision. A state supposedly so committed to the promises and ideologies of the Constitution is willing to deprive the citizens of the District the American birthright of governmental representation. This debate is not about whether statehood is legal or constitutional. It is about conservative leaders conspiring to keep the interests of working-class D.C. residents at bay, and Democracy and American ideology is taking a back seat to immediate political needs.
Opposition has always arisen from, as Ted Kennedy put it, “the fear that senators elected from the District may be too liberal, too urban, too black, or too Democratic.” It is time to stop playing political games with the American promise of governmental representation. Gray and his team will be traveling across the nation in the coming months to push for statehood. If the legislators are truly committed to the mission of this nation, they will put aside their class, race, and political differences with D.C. residents and support them in their quest for the fundamental right of a government by the people.
Is this what democracy looks like? Share your thoughts with Gavin at gbade@georgetownvoice.com
