A Report On Some Recent Political News
What Is Washington, D.C.?
The Constitution gave Congress, which in the late 1780s found itself traveling to different locations to meet, the “power to create a deferral district to ‘become the Seat of the Government of the United States” (3). In 1789, there were two potential locations for the capital that Congress debated: Lancaster, New York, and Germantown, Maryland. Hamilton, the Federalist Party leader supported a plan to move the capital to an underdeveloped location amid both Germantown and Lancaster (3).
Thomas Jefferson, the leader of the Democratic-Republican party, along with James Madison--a duo many would call Hamilton’s worst enemy--were in support of moving the capital south to support slave-holding and agricultural interests (4). Thus, after a “dinner and invite,” the three men sat down and compromised the capital’s location. Hamilton, who was interested in revamping America’s financial system, compromised with Jefferson and Madison that if they entrusted America’s economy to him, the capital would be moved to the South.
It was decided that Washington, D.C., would be placed on the banks of the Potomac River as part of the Residence Act of 1790, and George Washington was given the opportunity to make the final decision: 100 square miles ceded from Maryland and Virginia (3, 5). The city was then named Washington, Territory of Columbia: Washington after the late president and Columbia after Christopher Columbus (it was renamed the District of Columbia in 1871) (5). Today, Washington, D.C., is one of the most famous tourist attractions in all of America while also being home to the President of the United States, the Vice President of the United States, and the U.S. Capitol, where Congress meets. So, at the end of the day, Washington, D.C., really is just a federal district. The people of Washington, D.C., do have voting rights just like other states (electoral votes based on population)... and that’s really, about it.
On another note, let’s look at some things enjoyed by every other American besides those in our nation’s capital.
Taxation With Representation
Angered by British legislation like the Stamp Act of 1765, which placed taxes on things like playing cards, business licenses, newspapers, and legal documents in the 13 colonies and thus adding expenses to everyday life, many early Americans found it unconstitutional. A year later, the Townshend Act saw taxes placed on things like paint, paper, glass, lead, and tea. The colonists knew it was their time to stand up and revolt, and they did, forcing the British to disband taxes on everything but tea. So, on the night of December 16, 1773, the colonists, dressed as Native Americans, found themselves in Boston Harbor, where they boarded British ships and dumped 342 chests of tea into the water (1).
The colonists were fighting against something called “Taxation Without Representation,” a policy that “describes a populace that is required to pay taxes to a government authority without having any say in that government’s policies” (2). Today, all fifty states in America have representation in the United States government--the House of Representatives and the Senate--a testament to America’s allowance of involvement across the board. However, that is all fifty states. Only the fifty states.
“Okay so, wasn’t it established that Washington, D.C. is not a state? That obviously means that they are small enough to not need the level of representation, right?
Wrong. In fact, even though Washington, D.C., has a higher population than Vermont and Wyoming, the citizens of Washington, D.C., are forced to not only pay higher federal income tax than 22 states, but they also pay the highest per-capita income taxes in the entire country while enjoying no real representation in Congress, “real representation” meaning actual power to influence the decisions that affect the citizens of D.C. (6, 7).
The only representation Washington, D.C., has in Congress is a woman named Eleanor Holmes Norton, a native of Washington, D.C., that has served on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure with no voting power due to her unofficial status (8).
Military Power
In the summer of 2020, the Black Lives Matter movement saw an influx of support nationwide. One of the protests took place on Monday, June 1st, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Protesters marched down Phillips Avenue in Downtown Sioux Falls and were even accompanied by Goerge Floyd’s family, whose death inspired most of the 2020 protests. Once a group of protesters made it to the Empire Mall, roughly 3 ½ miles from the march’s starting location, things began to get violent. Governor Kristi Noem nearly immediately sent seventy armed troops of South Dakota’s National Guard to patrol the streets of Sioux Falls, South Dakota (9).
Noem’s actions were very much like different state governors’ actions during the BLM protests of summer 2020. However, when insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol during a joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021, neither Washington D.C. Representative Norton nor Mayor Muriel Bowser could do anything.
To request the National Guard’s presence in her city, Mayor Bowser needs to submit a request to the United States Secretary of the Army. The Secretary of the Army then needs to send the request to the Secretary of Defense for it to be approved. Even then, Mayor Bowser cannot request that troops be deployed on federal property, like the U.S. Capitol complex. On January 6, Mayor Bowser’s initial call for the National Guard was at 1:34 p.m., roughly an hour before rioters had entered statuary hall (10, 11).
It wouldn’t be until 5:40 p.m., over an hour after Donald Trump had told his supporters, “I know how you feel. But go home and go home in peace” (11). Along with the D.C. troops, the Maryland National Guard arrived on the scene. The delay, of course, is something to be investigated on account of whether or not a political agenda influenced it. Still, overall, the fact that it takes this long for the mayor of Washington D.C. to get the National Guard to a federal area of the city, with federal locations found in nearly every corner of the city, is simply incomprehensible.
In fact, one could consider it lucky that Maryland’s National Guard arrived on the scene that quickly, as it can usually take up to eight hours for troops from other states to arrive. Five people were killed during the capitol insurrection and many legislators and even former Vice President Mike Pence (after Donald Trump had tweeted that “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution!”) had their lives threatened, a statement proven by the fact that rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence!” after Trump’s tweet (11).
Issues With D.C. Statehood
Thanks to the 23rd Amendment, Washington, D.C., gets three electoral votes in the U.S. presidential elections. However, the 23rd Amendment would need to be repealed in order to stop the President of the United States, whomever they may be, from receiving more than enough voting power than the rest of the United States.
George Washington University law professor, Thomas Colby states, “If you do create a state of out of DC, and you reduce the seat of government just to the buildings right around the [national] mall, technically… those new buildings [including the US Capitol, the Lincoln Memorial, and the White House] get those three votes for president… which is not what anyone wants to have happen” (12). However, some elbow grease and hard work on a constitutional amendment can solve that issue. The only real issue comes mainly from the Republican party’s P.O.V. as it argues that statehood for Washington, D.C., would result in more strength for the Democratic Party.
Donald Trump put it rather bluntly in a New York Post interview: “...District of Columbia, a state? Why? So we can have two more Democrat senators and five more congressmen? No thank you” (13). Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, while serving as the Senate Majority leader, also stated that D.C. statehood was “full-bore socialism” and that “as long as [he was] the majority leader of the Senate, none of that stuff is going anywhere” (13).
When slaves were first freed, many occupied Washington, D.C. Now, the Black population of Washington, D.C., is 47.1%, and with numbers as recent as 2016 showing that 89% of Black voters supported Nominee Hillary Clinton and the fact that D.C. has never voted for a Republican in its history, it would make sense that the right would be worried. In fact, when supporting the voting rights of all U.S. citizens, it can also be argued that D.C. becoming a state would be rather unfair; people may wonder, “If the Democratic party is essentially getting a better shot at a majority in Congress, why can’t a new Republican state be added, as well?”
Of course, this isn't to say that either Trump or McConnell has a viable point. America, as always, relies on majority rule to select its leaders (a). The representation should accommodate the influx of new viewpoints. If more people like the left, the left should be in power. If more people like the right, the right should be in power. The same goes for every other political party in an election. However, if keeping everything entirely equal is of the utmost importance to anyone reading, there may actually be another solution to the D.C. debate and issue. One that many, on both sides, might just have completely wrong.
A Possible Solution to the Imposition: Puerto Rico
According to a Politico article published on November 9th, 2020--just two days after Joe Biden was elected president--it is, like the arguments against Washington, D.C., agreed upon that by adding Puerto Rico as a state, the Republican Party would never be able to win a majority in the senate again. However, it is a case of misconceptions gaining ground as facts. “People in the continental U.S. think that Puerto Ricans are going to vote Democratic, but on the other hand, the conservative values and Latin traditions are more akin to the values of a Republican Party,” José Garriga Picó, a political scientist and former member of the Puerto Rican legislature stated, “You can’t really predict what voters are going to do here” (14).
Looking at the numbers, 32% of Puerto Ricans surveyed said they are not Democrats, while 42% said they are independent. In fact, the New Progressive Party, a political party that supports American conservative causes like restrictions on abortions and expressions of gender identity, has won seven of the past eight elections in races for governor or resident commissioner. To add more context, the current Puerto Rican non-voting member of Congress (like Representative Norton) was the former co-chair of Latinos for Trump and the chairwoman of the Puerto Rican Republican party. The Puerto Rico situation is very similar to Hawaii and Alaska’s admittance as states. In 1959, it was widely believed that Hawaii would strongly favor the Republican party and Alaska would favor the Democratic Party--an assumption that is nowhere near the truth. Per Politico, “it’s no safe bet that those new senators would be Democrats” if Puerto Rico became a state (14).
The truth of the matter is that it all comes down to how much the American government is willing to care about its people. It’s nearly impossible to tell whether Puerto Rican legislators would lean towards the Democratic or Republican party, but gaining or losing party support should not be the main concern regardless. Wouldn’t it be best to ensure everyone under American jurisdiction has the same rights and the same representation?
Footnotes
a) You know when the electoral college doesn't decide the winner
Sources & Links
How Philadelphia lost the nation’s capital to Washington | Constitution Daily
Here are the 50 states in descending order of total population | Info Please
National Guard activated as protests turn violent in Sioux Falls | CBS14 FOX44 Siouxland News
Timeline: How the storming of the U.S. Capitol unfolded on Jan. 6 | USA Today
VERIFY: What’s the process for DC to become an official state? | WUSA9
Should DC become a state? Here are the pros and cons as House passes bill | McClatchy DC BUREAU
Why So Many Black Voters Are Democrats, Even When They Aren’t Liberal | FiveThirtyEight
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