Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) and other Democratic senators are introducing a bill for D.C. statehood today, a proposal with heavy opposition in the public in continuing polls. Indeed, the bill was one of the reasons that members and advocates demanded the killing of the filibuster rule to force through the change in status based on a bare majority. If successful, it would give the Democrats two more senators in a city-state that will expected to remain reliably blue. I have testified repeatedly on this issue. There are strong arguments for changing the status of the District and statehood is a viable option. It would clearly be constitutional unlike past proposals. The question is whether it is the best option for the country. Roughly 20 years ago, I proposed a “modified retrocession plan” that would be an alternative if the Congress wanted full voting rights for citizens of the District.
The proposal would make create the first city-state in our history with a population of 700,000.
However, half of the country opposes the idea. A new Harris/Hill poll shows fifty-two percent of respondents said they favored statehood while 48 percent said they opposed it. That is heavy opposition for such a statehood change.
Biden just unveiled another proposal with heavy public opposition: a commission that would allow court-packing or other structural changes on the Court to blunt the conservative majority.
I have written a long academic publication on the status of the District of Columbia and testified at the prior hearings on allowing for voting representation of District residents. See Jonathan Turley, Too Clever By Half: The Partial Representation of the District of Columbia in the House of Representatives, 76 George Washington University Law Review 305-374 (2008). I also testified in both the House and Senate repeatedly on such proposals.
The debate over D.C. statehood is a complex issue with historical, constitutional, and legal dimensions. It is also an issue with important and unresolved racial issues of a black-majority city without direct representation in Congress. I have previously voiced my view that such lack of representation for the District is unacceptable and untenable in our country.
In all, I have testified five times in the House and the Senate on this issue in Congress, particularly on the effort to simply give the District a vote in the House of Representatives. I encouraged the Congress to avoid such flagrantly unconstitutional measures of a vote as a non-state entity and instead focus on a vote of statehood or retrocession. That is why I offered a “modified retrocession plan”, which was also discussed in an academic work. Under my proposal, the mall and core federal buildings would remain the District of Columbia (as is the case in this legislation) but the remainder of the District would retrocede back to Maryland (as did the other half of the original District to Virginia). In this way, residents would receive full representation while receiving the benefits of various Maryland educational and other opportunities. That reduction of the federal enclave has been incorporated in some statehood proposals. I believed that such retrocession offered the fastest course for not just full representation but improved social and educational programs for the district residents. I laid out a phased retrocession plan that began with immediate and full representation. This could be done by congressional vote.
People of good-faith can disagree on such proposals and the current legislation is clearly a constitutional approach to reaching a final resolution on the lack of representation in Congress. Indeed, it is important to hear from those who believe that statehood is an important step toward dealing with the historical racial inequalities and discrimination in our nation. Modified retrocession may not be enough to resolve such issues for many in our community.
WHERE WASHINGTON D.C. COMPARES WITH THE 10 LEAST POPULOUS STATES
Wyoming (Population: 572,381)
Vermont (Population: 627,180)
District of Columbia (Population: 711,571)
Alaska (Population: 735,720)
North Dakota (Population: 760,900)
South Dakota (Population: 892,631)
Delaware (Population: 975,033)
Rhode Island (Population: 1,056,738)
Montana (Population: 1,074,532)
Maine (Population: 1,342,097)
Source: World Population Review, 2020 preliminary census
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
If Washington D.C. is not deserving of 2 U.S. Senators, then none of these states are. Perhaps states with less than 3 million people should only get ‘1’ U.S. Senator?
I have a better idea. Give DC statehood, but expand DC’s jurisdiction into Virginia so that the rest of Virginia can get the two red Senators they deserve. The Democrats pick up two senate seats but so does the GOP. Everybody is happy–except Ralph Northam.
That’s fair. Now try and argue against it.
I may have been too heated in my response. Sorry. I thought you might be trolling. My suggested solution was genuine, though.
One Senator for states less than 3 million would require a constitutional amendment, which is even harder these days than getting getting statehood. That’s my two cents.
If Washington D.C. is not deserving of 2 U.S. Senators, then none of these states are.
Thanks for the ex cathedra. Been an education.
While we’re at it, Montgomery County (Md) has a larger population than DC. Should we admit it too?
DC pop of 700,000 plus is larger than the state of Wyoming (579,000), Vermont (624,000) and near the pop of Alaska and North Dakota (both being in the mid 700,000 range) Also, the Federal govt collects from the US Citizens in DC 2 and a half more in taxes than from the citizens of Idaho
So, what’s the problem with expectations of “no taxation without representation” DC has no vote in the Senate, Whereas, other citizens of less populist states and which pay fewer in taxation have such.
Bottom line, conservatives will fight statehood for DC as it will mean 2 Senators, very likely Democratic
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Sal Sar
I wanted to ask you about that. Maybe these woke, billionaire hypocrites have finally gone too far?
The DC bureaucracy needs to be distributed throughout the Nation. most agencies could be sited in the area they serve. Dept of AG in Kansas. Energy in Louisiana Education in Tennessee. And keep going. That solves the problem of un-represented voters. Those cabinet secretaries are smart enough to zoom conference. 3rd graders across the nation have shown them how its done.
Again, most federal employees, military and civilian, are field employees and not located in the DC commuter belt.
”
The proposal would make create the first city-state in our history with a population of 700,000.”
I see what you did there Turley. by saying it would be the first city-state in our history, you overlook that D.C. has a population greater than Vermont and Wyoming. Turley also states those votes would always be Democratic. Funny thing, the same populace would have once voted Republican. Surely the current Republican Party embrace/ignoring of white supremacist groups will help win them back?
If 700,000 white people were unrepresented in Congress and had to rely on any recent Congress to oversee them. How long would that stand?
I see what you did there Turley. by saying it would be the first city-state in our history, you overlook that D.C. has a population greater than Vermont and Wyoming.
It has a stagnant population and Vermont and Wyoming do not. It has no countryside, no small towns, and only a fragment of the whole metropolitan settlement. Why not retrocede?
That’s your argument, no small towns or countryside? New York has had a declining population, maybe their statehood should be declined. Puerto Rico has small towns and cpountryside, why not admit them. The rationale to exclude them is strictly partisan based on the perception that Republicans can’t win a majority of Black and brown voters which is probably true for a number of policy reasons.
New York has had a declining population,
It hasn’t. It has occasional periods of decline. It’s population growth since 1975 exceeds that of DC.
That’s your argument, no small towns or countryside?
That’s part of it.
Puerto Rico has small towns and cpountryside, why not admit them
Because the local population is ambivalent about that course of action and because Puerto Rico is a Latin American country with a contractual relationship with the US, not a part of the US.
The rationale to exclude them
Has been explained to you, whether you can be bothered to make sense of it or not.
And you keep ignoring the option of retrocession.
Puerto Rico has voted six times to declare it wanted to be a state. I wouldn’t consider that ambivalent. You were right that part of the reason is that it’s a Latin American country. John C. Calhoun famously said the US shouldn’t absorb Mexico because there were too many Mexicans. Same principle here.
I ignore retrocession because DC residents have. They have fought steadily for statehood since the late 1800s.
If 700,000 white people were unrepresented in Congress and had to rely on any recent Congress to oversee them. How long would that stand?
There were 517,000 white people living there in 1950. The district was governed by an appointed commissioner who reported to the President and Congress. That situation had stood for about 80 years at that time.
They’ve had to rely on Congress from time to time because, in spite of having a personal income per capita exceeding that of any state, they ruined their finances and needed to be put under a conservatorship.
Depending on how “white” is defined, white people currently make up nearly half the population. Congress ( a body we might agree has no right to oversee any city) still controls much of what happens there. They obviously couldn’t independently invite in the National Guard of Maryland without approval from the Pentagon. I wonder how their finances are affected by events outside their control, like the President inviting white supremacists to the city for things to be “wild?”
( a body we might agree has no right to oversee any city) s
No we don’t agree. The franchise for Congress to govern DC is in an explicit constitutional provision.
Congress ( a body we might agree has no right to oversee any city) still controls much of what happens there.
You mean the discretion of the DC government is a function of federal legislation. That it is. Congress has been hands-off for 46 years. The exception was the conservatorship.
I wonder how their finances are affected by events outside their control, like the President inviting white supremacists to the city for things to be “wild?”
1. No more than any place else.
2. The president did not do that and there is little evidence of any activity by ‘white supremacists’. Live in truth, enigma.
Since there is so much evidenc of white supremacist involvement. OPlease let me know if there is any kind of evidence you will consider proof?
Funy discussion. Funny in that most of the public sector employment are Democrat party supporters and funders. Somehow there are countervailing views occurring simultaneously. To wit:
1. R voters are “dumb” based on exit polling of voter-supplied information. OK–so which is it–are D voters the “common people” looking for minimum wage, or are they a bunch of attorneys, doctors, and professors? It is a silly argument to make in that it is a meaningless aggregate statistic from which to draw individual inferences.
2. A 55-45 county for Team A is considered to be responsible for 100% of the private sector productivity. Note that compulsory public sector “income” must not be included because it is funded by the private sector’s non-compulsory wealth creation.
And the whole idea of “Oh Yeah Mr 48%–go ahead and leave” is silly as well. The same love it or leave it BS from neocons. That’s not how it works.It is quite amusing to watch the convergence of Statists as Hayek predicted.
3. Finally, the whole argument of popular vote is meaningless. If in a best of 5 set tennis match, you won the last three sets 7-6 each. Would it be fair for me to say I “won” something–even a moral victory, if I won the first two sets 6-0 6-0? Of course not. You saved yourself for the big sets when it counted and made a calculated assessment to win by the RULES IN PLACE when it commenced.
Not that I am one, but why would anyone but a D invest limited funds to run in essentially uni-party states? And why would people in those states be motivated to vote? Once again, such elitist notions to think normal people think the way some people here do.
No one forces anyone in DC to live there. By living they volunteer to not be represented, if they want that live in surrounding states. Quit trying to change the constitution without the required legislation.
Should the District of Columbia become a state, then the Federal Agencies that exist within the District should be moved to various states. Move the Supreme Court to Kansas, State Department to Texas, Department of Interior to Wyoming, FEMA to Florida, HUD to Oklahoma, Department of Education to Mississippi, FBI to Colorado, Department of Defense to Nebraska, House of Representatives to North Dakota, Senate to Arizona, and build a Presidential House in all 50 States Capitals requiring the President to move from state to state every week. This would then disperse the four trillion dollars the federal government allocates annually across the country. Of course this is absurd but really no more than having the District becoming a state.
Three other states have less population then DC.
No, two. And those two have seen adequate population increase over the last 45 years, while DC has fluctuated up and down and is net zero. (It has fewer people than it did when my mother finished high school there in 1948).
You want it to have floor votes, advocate retrocession.
At some point those like the Prof will have no choice but to acknowledge that their beloved Democratic Party are the only ones pushing any of this. I would greatly prefer that be before it is too late. The historical dem party is ALREADY toast. You aren’t voting for JFK anymore, people, and less than two weeks in your Great Leader has already made this very difficult to prevent/undo if we don’t speak NOW. Quoting the Constitution is irrelevant unless we hold them to it, otherwise it’s just another piece of paper burning in the wind.
Facebook and the American Journal of Medicine decide hydroxychloroquine is effective with the China Virus after all. Lancet recently reversed its position as well.
How many people suffered and how many died because Democrats and their allies wanted only to score political points against President Trump?
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/01/440000-americans-dead-facebook-american-journal-medicine-admit-stand-hcq-wrong-people-prosecuted/
That’s a red cape in front of Paint Chips.
Funny how that works Huh Young? Let’s not hold our breath for apologies.
Then there’s Ivermectin. And Vitamin D
“people died that did not have to die”
that’s what they said a thousand times last year. let’s see that finger aim where it belongs at our fake and self serving medical establishment leaders
as fake as any other cartel leaders
today Im pissed at the financial powers that be however, don’t get me distracted
Sal Sar
Not enough people in DC to fill the churches in NyC.
Joefriday constantly tells of the privileges of the rich over the poor and now he tells us that the better off should have more control. He points out that we should not consider the rights of the “deplorables”. Trump voters are not educated he proclaims with his nose in the air. Joe imagines himself as a warrior for the people.
Again, they have no principles, merely improvisations that provide specious justifications for them getting what they want. Read Gainesville for a while and you can see that he hardly says anything that isn’t self-aggrandizing on some level.
I’d be interesting to learn what percentage of that 52% that claims to support DC statehood also recently supported abolishing the electoral college on the ground that the popular vote should prevail in national elections?? It seems that giving 2 senators to a proposed state that only has a 700,000 person population strikes me as abject hypocrisy.and contradicts the notion of ‘equal representation’. Merging DC into Maryland is a much better idea.
Three other states have less population then DC.
Again, two states, both of which are demographically dynamic to a degree DC is not, neither of whom are clotted with federal employees, and neither of whom had to be put in conservatorship in spite of an ample tax base.
The area other than the White House and capitol needs to be put into the state of Maryland. That’s it!
No new state.
Did there bill comply with Constitutinal law which states any change to the Constitution must be confirmed by 2/3rds of the States. This one stands no chance at all as DC minus foreigners has insufficient citizens for the idiot proposal to get past hurdle one never mind the rest of it. And they stil can’t get their work down in the socialist party.
Takes two thirds of the states to change the constitution. Just another socialist ploy to take over lie by lie.
A single city should not be a state. Simple answer is if we no longer want a Capital City as originally designed, simply revert the land back to Virginia and Maryland. The voters then get the representation of the states that gave up the land to create Washington DC
A quibble: it’s a single municipality. The ‘city’ properly understood is the whole of the dense settlement around DC, which includes the District, two counties in Maryland, four counties in Virginia, and five stand-alone municipalities in Virginia. The DC municipal government encompasses only 15% of the whole.
Tony, “ A single city should not be a state.” There are several examples of cities being a state. The Vatican is a city state, Monaco, Formerly Hong Kong , Washington DC is perfectly capable of being its own state. It would still be a city AND the Capitol.
There are several examples of cities being a state. The Vatican is a city state, Monaco, Formerly Hong Kong , Washington DC is perfectly capable of being its own state. It would still be a city AND the Capitol.
You ought to learn to not conflate the different uses of the word ‘state’.
No, the Vatican is a physical manifestation of a diplomatic courtesy. Monaco is an antique principality that provides a tax and regulatory holiday for those who can afford to live there; it’s always going to be dependent on France for a raft of services sovereign countries provide for themselves. The French region of Provence is of a dimension that it could conceivably provide those services for itself (of course it relies on the central government). The population of Monaco is 0.5% of the population of Provence. As for Hong Kong, it has a population 10x that of DC and an extraordinary history of economic development; to this day it has per capital income levels 2.5x those of the adjacent province of China. It’s institutional and cultural development has been entirely different for 160 years. It’s population and income flows are, again, sufficient to generate the full array of services a sovereign nation has.
Per the Lateran Treaty the Vatican is indeed a sovereign state.
It’s biggest concession of sovereignty was taking the euro as a currency
Many microstates exist under the implicit security guarantees of neighbors, not just them.
Sal Sar
Per the Lateran Treaty the Vatican is indeed a sovereign state.
And foreign embassies are the territory of foreign governments. Big whoop.
Try reading the US Constitution before spouting your bubble headed nonsense. Capable is not legal. Try keeping your arguments within the US too.
Your stupidity never ceases to amaze me. But Art Deco says it best.
i disagree with Tony. a city can be a fully sovereign state. that’s how sovereignty started in ancient Greece as an idea, and long before Greece, in Egypt and Sumer, as realities of emergent political cooperation among city-dwellers against those outside the gates
DC should not be a state for many other reasons, however
Sal Sar
You’re fixated on juridical status and not function.