I live in the District of Columbia, home to nearly 700,000 people. Our citizens serve in the military and die in foreign wars. We pay more in federal income taxes per capita than any state. But we have no voting representation in either the Senate or the U.S. House of Representatives.
In a referendum in 2016, 86% of DC residents voted in support of statehood.
The United States is the only developed republic in the world in which citizens of its federal district do not have voting representation in a governing body.
There continue to be many discussions on issues and complexities of DC voting rights and statehood. Every session, a bill is introduced in congress to admit DC as a state, according to will of the overwhelming majority of its citizens. This bill is never considered by either the House or the Senate.
I think of DC Statehood in a way similar to the way I think of TPP (the Trans-Pacific Partnership, see http://us-sense.org/index.php/the-trans-pacific-partnership-tpp/ : It is a complex issue, but the correct move is clear. In the case of statehood, the decisive factor is, how can we claim to have a democratic system when we blatantly deny voting rights to residents of our nation’s capital who desire and fight for them? Why do we live in a country where visitors see “Taxation Without Representation” on the license plates when they visit our national monuments? A country we created to get away from taxation without representation, but where we hypocritically advocate it when it suits us?
I do not ignore the various constitutional, economic, and other issues involved in DC statehood. But, as with TPP, those who prevent DC from becoming a state really do ignore them. They make up their minds based on political reasons, then justify their hypocritical, political opinions based on constitutional or other grounds (without having really looked at the constitution).
The real reason DC has not yet become a state is that the members of the United States Congress do not want DC’s representatives to have a say in our government.
The result is unfortunate. First, it goes against everything we really stand for as a country. It loudly speaks the message, “if you do not agree with me, I do not want you to be represented in our government” — in some ways the darkest and most hypocritical message in our political system. Second, it reinforces the polarization that stands in the way of true progress. This site is devoted to having all Americans work together to address our national challenges. Blocking DC Statehood based on political affiliation means that eventually there will be a Democratic congress that admits DC as a state in order to strengthen its majority. DC will never be admitted for the right reasons. But it will be admitted.