D.C. Statehood Bill Gets Rare Capitol Hill Hearing
Flickr user Mike Licht via CC BY 2.0
A U.S. Senate committee considers a 51st state proposal to give equal voting rights to residents in the nation's capital.
A bill that would grant statehood to the residents of the nation’s capital got its first hearing on Capitol Hill in 20 years on Monday. But don’t expect the legislation to go anywhere.
“It is hard to explain to anyone why a nation that sees itself as a beacon of democracy keeps the more than a half million inhabitants of its capitol city from normal participation in the governance of the country,” former Clinton White House Office of Management and Budget Director Alice Rivlin said in her testimony in support of D.C. statehood.
The Senate Governmental Affairs and Homeland Security Committee hearing room was fairly empty.
Although it has 18 Senate co-sponsors, only the bill's lead sponsor, Delaware Sen. Tom Carper, showed up at the beginning of the hearing, according to WJLA-TV, which reports that even if the legislation gets more attention in the Senate, which is unlikely, it would be “dead on arrival” in the House .
D.C. residents do not have equal representation in Congress compared to U.S. residents in the 50 states. Like Puerto Rico, Guam and American Samoa, the District of Columbia has a non-voting delegate in the U.S. House.
Under the New Columbia legislation, D.C. would get a voting representative in the U.S. House and two U.S. senators, just like the 50 states. The D.C. Council would become a state legislature.
The U.S. Constitution was amended in the 1960s to allow D.C. residents to vote for president and vice president through the Electoral College. D.C.’s Home Rule Act , approved in the 1970s, allows for the local election of mayor, members of the D.C. Council and some other local government positions. Prior to that, Congress had more direct control over the administration of the federal district through an appointed commissioner system and in the 1870s, a short-lived territorial government.
Under D.C.’s current governance structure, Congress and the White House have the ability to block legislation passed by D.C.’s locally elected officials and can otherwise meddle in local affairs, including blocking the allocation of funding. The uncomfortable relationship has led to periodic acrimony between Capitol Hill and D.C.'s local leaders—especially during federal government shutdowns which can impact D.C.'s local government operations—but in recent years, there has been some unlikely cooperation , too.
A leading member of the Republican majority in the House, Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa of California, has given greater consideration to allowing D.C.’s local government budget autonomy.
But nothing has changed, except the growing population in the nation's capital.
The District of Columbia’s population, which stands at roughly 650,000 residents, is larger than two other states, Vermont and Wyoming. The federal enclave's gross domestic product, nearly $110 billion, is also larger than Alaska, Delaware, Arkansas, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming, according to the Washington Business Journal .
Despite all that, attempts to expand voting rights in the District of Columbia have been stymied over the years by both feeble congressional support and constitutional concerns. Although President Obama has expressed his support of expanded D.C. voting rights, some local activists have been at times disappointed that the White House hasn't put more of its weight behind efforts to gain more legislative traction in Congress.
Previously, there have been other proposals to solve the D.C. voting rights issue, including the District of Columbia's territorial retrocession to Maryland , which local leaders have rejected.
The Washington Post ’s Mike DeBonis explains how the New Columbia legislation works :
[T]he hearing has renewed questions about the constitutionality of creating a state of New Columbia through an act of Congress, as the present bill would do. The thinking behind the New Columbia Admission Act goes like this: Congress has the explicit constitutional power to admit a new state, and it has the power to change the size of the District — after all, it gave the portion of the original “ten Miles square” lying west of the Potomac River back to Virginia in 1846 – so why not shrink the current District to a small enclave encompassing the White House, Capitol and military facilities, admitting the remainder of the city as a new state?
There is limited support for D.C. statehood outside the nation’s capital, making the constitutional amendment route a difficult one. A September 2013 Rasmussen Reports poll found that only 25 percent of Americans support the District of Columbia’s becoming the 51st state , according to DCist.
In March, state legislators in New Hampshire passed a House resolution "expressing support for the right of residents of the District of Columbia to be fully represented in the Congress of the United States of America," CQ Roll Call reported.
(Photo by Flickr user Mike Licht via a CC BY 2.0 license)