What would be the benefit to the citizens of D.C. and to the country if it were to become a state?
For one thing, control of their own local tax dollars. Why should some Congressman from Utah get to decide what Washingtonians do with
their money?
And do a majority of US citizens want their Capitol to be a state?
The
United States Capitol will continue to be a federal building in Washington, no worries.
As for what the majority of the country wants -- I don't give a fuck. It's not their decision to make.
We're not talking about some random piece of the United States, DC has a special existence.
So what? The people who actually live there matter more than other people's feelings.
Ottawa is merely part of a very large province.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but if Washington D.C. becomes a state, wouldn't it become a state consisting of one city and nothing else?
Works for Berlin.
Isn't pretending that becoming a state is the only way to accomplish that goal "doing a back flip?
Under the U.S.'s system of dual sovereignty, statehood is the only way to guarantee that the people of D.C. both get an equal voice in Congress, and get to control their own laws and tax money.
Retrocession would make the will of the people of D.C. subordinate to the will of the Maryland General Assembly. The current situation subordinates the will of the people of D.C. to the whims of Congress.
Becoming a new state is not the only way to achieve representation.Incorporating the non-governmental parts of DC into the two adjacent counties of Maryland would let them do just that.
That does not give them equal representation, it lumps them in with another state and dilutes their voice in Congress.
If people want their own state, they ought to get it. However, the name "New Columbia" lacks originality in my opinion. A unique state should have a unique name. How about naming it after the indigenous inhabitants: Nacotchtank (or anglicised: Anacostia) ? It translates as Trading Village and that would also fit its tradition as a seat of government organisations and and foreign embassies.
I personally favor calling the new state Douglass Commonwealth, after Frederick Douglass. Apparently the state constitution draft approved by the D.C. Council and put up for vote calls it the
State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth. I think that's an unreasonably complex name, but whatever.
But isn't the stated reason DC shouldn't become part of Maryland simply that the people of DC don't want to be part of Maryland?
Neither side wants retrocession. Marylanders and Washingtonians are two distinct political cultures and they do not want to be lumped in with one-another.
So if other people in the country simply don't want to be a part of the state they're already in, why shouldn't they too have the ability to form a separate state?
Because each state has dual sovereignty along with the federal union of which they are a part. By contrast, the District of Columbia does not have dual sovereignty, and its people aspire to such.
DC has a representative, just not a vote on the House floor. That rep is able to participate, and presumably vote, in committees, and lobby the entire House on behalf of DC.
D.C. has a
Delegate to the House of Representatives, not a United States Representative. The ability of this Delegate to vote even in committee is subject to the whims of whichever party is in the majority; when Republicans are in the majority, the Delegate may not even vote in committee. So the Delegate's power is extremely limited -- it's a mostly-ceremonial position.
The district is represented by the whole of Congress.
Bull. Shit.
The cost of seating a governor and legislature would likely necessitate a huge increase in taxes, since the thirteen seat council headed by a mayor would probably no longer be sufficient to govern a new state.
The
draft constitution approved by the Council of the District of Columbia establishes a Legislative Assembly consisting of 21 members: a Speaker of the Legislative Assembly elected on an at-large basis, 4 Representatives elected at-large, and 2 Representatives elected for each of the 8 legislative districts of the State of Washington, D.C. It also establishes the office of Governor of the State of Washington, D.C., and of the independent offices of Attorney General, Chief Financial Officer, the State Board of Education, and the Board of Elections.
Doesn't seem too awful to me, given that the New York City Council has 30 more members.
Taking the federal government out of the equation would probably mean the creation of new bureaucracies which would also need to be funded.
Not really. The draft constitution really just re-brands the existing District bureaucracy as "State of Washington, D.C. bureaucracy" rather than "District of Columbia bureaucracy." The federal bureaucracy doesn't really run D.C.
With a population of only about 900K, the demands would soon exceed the ability of the citizenry to pay.
I'm waiting for Vermont, Wyoming, Alaska, North Dakota, and South Dakota to collapse from this supposed inability of a state to function with less than 900,000 people.
Except for that little thing, that Constitutional thing, that would have to be dealt with first.
One thing that people these days forget, or ignore (and maybe in days past--I can't say because I wasn't alive then), is that our legislative process was designed to move slowly. A snail's pace, if said snail was on heavy medication. It's a system designed to move so slowly that changes brought up on a whim would be discussed and argued into oblivion.
It is not that people
forget this. It is that it is a
bad legislative system that no longer meets our nation's needs, and which ought to be changed.
The reason for DC's existence as separate from the states needs to be studied and understood, and knee-jerk demands set aside.
The residents of the District of Columbia have been second-place citizens for over two hundred years. Spare me the "knee-jerk" bullshit.
Also, DC doesn't just belong to the local residents, it belongs to the entire population of the United States.
Sorry, but Adams Morgan and Anacostia do not belong to some jerk in California or some asshole in Nebraska. They belong to the people who actually live there and who actually care about their community.
ETA:
Meanwhile, John Oliver shows why all arguments against D.C. statehood are bullshit.
