DC Statehood? Well, not exactly...

by shamanic

Congress has long tried to find an answer for the thorny constitutional question of DC voting rights, and in the current term they've floated variations of a bill that would grant residents of the city a single House seat, as well as fast-track Utah's pending House seat, which I guess would otherwise happen after the 2010 census.

It's pretty standard legislative horse trading, but the concept of DC representation has met with fierce resistance from GOP representatives, senators, and even earned a White House veto threat.

But yesterday, the House finally passed two narrowly-written measures which, taken together, create the two new House seats and fund them. An earlier attempt at a broader, single bill was derailed when Republican House members attached an amendment to end DC's gun ban, asserting that a constitutional right to vote meant that DC residents also had a right to own guns.

And this is exactly the type of problem that this legislation creates. Democrats claim that their push does pass constitutional muster, while Republicans point out that the Constitution clearly says that the people of the states will be represented in the houses of Congress.

So do we now begin the push for two Senators from the District? I can't see how someone could argue that the residents of the district only warrant representation in the lower house of Congress. Our system is quite clear. The people are represented in the House by one legislator from a congressional district apportioned by population; and in the Senate by two, each representing the entire state.

Thornier: The District has more residents than Wyoming does, and about 3/4 the population of North Dakota. This is America, and clearly Washingtonians deserve better than to have their city affairs micromanaged by out-of-towners driven by partisan agendas fueled by their Nebraskan (for example) antipathy towards cities, and for their "shadow delegate" in Congress to lack even the power of a protest vote.

The major proposals out there seem to be the path that Congress has just taken, which I imagine leads to eventual statehood for the residential areas of the District, and a competing GOP proposal to slice the residential areas of DC away from the federal district and make most Washingtonians residents of Maryland. Maryland apparently isn't terribly interested in picking up the tab for the notoriously crime-ridden city.

So the House opted for the path of a single congressional representative for the people of the District. It's a creeping and inherently dishonest approach to achieving DC statehood, which I find unpalatable primarily because I support DC statehood in theory (the devil is always in the detailed maps that are drawn up reflecting the boundaries of the proposed 51st state).

The Senate promises to be a fight, and should it make it through the Senate, the White House has promised to kill the measure. I greet its doom with ambivalence. Representation--in the House and Senate--for the people of Washington is the right thing to do, but achieving it through an honest public discussion of the issue is too.