I was born in the District of Columbia when my father was stationed at a naval base nearby in the post-war period. Endless arguments still rage as to whether D.C. should be granted statehood. The latest debate is noted at BoingBoing:
Yesterday morning Rep. Jody Hice (R–GA) made the bizarre argument that D.C. could not become a state because it doesn't have a car dealership.** Then later in the day Senator Mike Rounds (R–S.D.) tried to make the argument that "the founding fathers never intended for Washington D.C. to be a state." This, coming from a senator who represents South Dakota, a non-existent state during the days of the founding fathers that was later created to give republicans more votes.
The reason Republicans are opposed to D.C. statehood is based on demographics: voter registration there is 76% Democrat, 6% Republican according to Senator Rounds.
Democrats counter that the massively underpopulated Western states were added in the past in order to give Republicans more power.
"DC has more residents than WY and pays more taxes than 20 states, including [South Dakota]. The founding fathers specifically said, "No taxation without representation!"
It's all politics - power politics and money. That's all senators care about.
** Addendum: "Except DC does have car dealerships, as a Google search or visit to the DC Department of Motor Vehicles website -- or perhaps a leisurely drive around town -- would have shown."
Incorporate DC into Maryland, keeping the original 10 mile area of the federal government it's own zone. Similar political demographics, and it's basically a part of the state anyway. Dems get a slight bump in House and electoral vote representation, but nothing insurmountable. And DC residents have "representation" for what that's worth.
ReplyDeleteThe worrying thing is that our New Zealand politicians are starting to imitate yours, a path likely to ruin a good country, or at least our good name.
ReplyDeleteLuckily, last election the party using dirty tricks got near buried by a landslide win by the Labour party, led by Jacinda Ardern.
The losing party changed their leader twice, having three leaders in the few months before the election, the first one having been judged ineffectual, and the second one (who had a MAGA cap, nuff said) suffered from panic attacks .... the third one, a woman married to a Chinese man who owns a shady dealing milk export company, also wore a cap, albeit a blue one, and wore the nick name 'Crusher' (from a bill she pushed to crush road hooligans cars) and lacked enough personality to garner many votes.
I may be a bit biased, but thats basically how it went.
Oh, and Jacinda is a bit of a sweetie.
There is good reason that Washington, D.C., was not to become a state. You will remember that to keep the number of slave states and free states equal, we did all kinds of tap dancing. Since Virginia and Maryland both southern states (or at least nominally one), it would stand to reason that the founders didn't want WDC to become a state, since it would have been more than likely that a new southern state would have come into being.
ReplyDeleteBesides, if it became a state, then the question could be asked why we even carved it out of VA and MD, instead of just choosing a state and building it there.
Virginia reclaimed their portion of DC in 1846. The district resides entirely within the State of Maryland. Therefore, if it's Constitutional status is to be changed, it should be returned to Maryland. We are NOT a country of city-states.
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