You know those nightmares when you wake up and can’t speak? Or when you’re running from a clown and can’t scream? These dreams are terrible, and you wake up and have never been so happy to hear your own voice. This is a nightmare that DC has been living in since its birth.
Washington, DC, is not a state. It is a city and a district with its own government and system of education, police department, and infrastructure. However, according to Federalist 43, DC is “exclusively ruled by Congress” (Library of Congress). This means that Congress can overrule, change, or input any bills, policies, or wishes upon and for the District. However, the 700,000 residents of DC have little voice in the Congress that rules over them. In turn, this means that DC has less of a voice and representation in the United States. The DC representative, Eleanor Holmes Norton, does not even have equal voting rights in Congress, even though DC residents serve in the military, pay extremely high federal taxes, and vote for president, which are all characteristics of a state. DC residents, therefore, have no voice in federal matters, yet we are the nation’s capital, where these matters are decided upon. To address this, Congress should take Eleanor Holmes Norton’s bill for the Douglas Commonwealth and vote for DC to become the 51st state so DC residents can gain representation equal to that of other Americans.
To appreciate this solution, we have to first understand the problem. At present, the District is completely capable of running an efficient city, yet the city’s government is still under Congress, even more so than other states. As The Economist (2018) states, “The Federal Government continues to have authority over the city’s budget, inviting all manner of meddling from legislators who have sought to change everything from the city’s drug policies to the way its taxis set their fares.” This can cause serious detriments to the District’s healthcare system, economy, and general confidence in the local government. It also means that Congress sometimes diverts its valuable time from big national issues to petty things such as local taxi fares. Other states do not often have the problem of being overruled by a higher power and have a degree of financial and political freedom from Congress.
Alongside DC having less autonomy, we also have a lesser representation. Public Integrity digs deeper into the lack of representation in Congress, stating, “Despite paying federal taxes and having a population size larger than Wyoming and Vermont, D.C. elects a single delegate to the U.S. House…who is able to vote in committee and introduce legislation, but does not have the power to vote on any bills” (Starshak). Additionally, as DC Mayor Muriel Bowser has said, “DC as a whole pays more federal income tax than 22 other states, but has no say over how those tax dollars are spent” (Bowser). As a citizen of the United States and a resident of DC, I feel very unpatriotic, as the capital of our nation is currently being oppressed and taxed without representation, which is the basis of the argument that founded our country. To make a long story short, DC lacks fundamental American rights in so many ways. The biggest one is taxation without representation. This is a problem that needs to be fixed for the 700,000 people who live without representation.
I have lived in DC my whole life. I know the mall, the tourists, the traffic, and how it gets humid in the summer. I remember trying to learn even more about my city at a very young age, how it was more than a city, less than a state, and somehow somewhere in between. It didn’t make sense: a District that is ruled by Congress has its own government and has more people than other states. These arguments bombarding my mind seemed to make so much more sense than the word “district.” I’ve learned to love the word district but also find myself longing for so much more, smiling at the 51st state signs on yards, fighting for statehood, and advocating whenever I can. The District has its faults, and under the rule of Congress, it can be very hard to address them: in 1998, for example, Congress banned DC’s clean needle exchange in the city, hoping it would discourage drug use; however, it only resulted in more HIV cases and cost the city millions in healthcare bills. Gaining Statehood for DC would remove the residents of DC from under the thumb of Congress and prevent problems like this from happening again.
The people of DC are fighting for equal representation through gaining statehood, an irreversible action that would provide DC with two voting senators as well as voting representatives in the House of Representatives. This lack of representation should and can be fixed with statehood. Democracy Docket explains a leading solution presented in Congresswoman Norton’s bill: “DC has regular land and then federal land. They have different rules and are governed by different jurisdictions. Congresswoman Norton’s bill, HR 51, would use these existing lines to carve out a new federal enclave — one much smaller than the entire District but that houses Congress, the Capitol, and other key downtown federal buildings and excludes the majority of residential areas in the city” (Docket).
This solution would give the people of DC the representation they are fighting for, get DC out of Congress’s control, keep the federal land under federal jurisdiction, and give DC the autonomy and representation we want. According to Democracy Docket, statehood in DC “would help right the partisan skew of a Senate where the Democrats consistently suffer from severe malapportionment of seats. And it would save our capital city from being subjected to the whims of congressional representatives from far-off states who assert their conservative policies over the will of the District’s voters.” (Docket) This solution correlates with and solves problems that DC is currently facing regarding representation and equal rights while also providing an accurate representation of our country in Congress, adding more voices that were previously not heard to the many who are helping our country benefit our nation. Congresswoman Norton’s statehood bill provides the residents of the District with the statehood they are fighting for, as well as keeping a federally controlled seat of government.
Opponents of DC statehood argue that DC cannot be a state due to the imbalance in Congress that would result from the reps DC would get if we became a state. What this opinion fails to consider is the fact that Congress should be an accurate representation of our country– some might say a window into our country, not just a mirror to a select few. Seeing as “Congress enacts laws that influence the daily lives of all Americans and is intended to serve as the voice of the people” (US Capitol Visitor’s Center), Congress should be representing everyone in the country, including DC, as their decisions that we currently have very little say in, affect our daily lives even more so as we physically house the capitol. As you can see, the opponent’s argument is not valid; even if the Democrats outweigh the Republicans in the House, Congress should still, in fact, be an accurate representation of the United States.
In closing, DC’s lack of representation has created more challenges than benefits for the US. Eleanor Holmes Norton’s bill for the Douglas Commonwealth should be accepted by Congress so that the residents of DC get the equal representation that they deserve. Congress would be an accurate window into the people of the United States of America, and DC would be free from all manner of meddling from Congress within local affairs. This dream I have is one that showcases that one day, the city I love and know, the 700,000 I am in community with, will have equal representation.
Works Cited
“Research Guides: Federalist Papers: Primary Documents in American History: Federalist Nos. 41-50.” Library of Congress, guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/text-41-50.
EAH “Why Washington, DC Is Seeking Statehood.” The Economist, The Economist Newspaper, 28 Apr. 2016, www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2016/04/27/why-washington-dc-is-seeking-statehood.
Starshak, Hayley. “It’s Easy to Vote in Washington, DC, but It Still Doesn’t Count.” Center for Public Integrity, 6 Oct. 2022, publicintegrity.org/politics/elections/who-counts/its-easy-to-vote-in-washington-d-c-but-it-still-doesnt-count/. Accessed 27 Oct. 2023.
Bowser, Muriel. “Why Statehood for DC.” Statehood For DC, statehood.dc.gov/page/why-statehood-dc. Accessed 27 Oct. 2023.
Ober, Lauren. “Once-Controversial DC Needle Exchange Found to Save Money – and Lives.” WAMU, 9 Oct. 2016, wamu.org/story/15/09/25/dc_needle_exchange/. Accessed 27 Oct. 2023.
Docket, Democracy. “The Fight for DC Statehood.” Democracy Docket, 8 Sept. 2022, www.democracydocket.com/analysis/the-fight-for-dc-statehood/. Accessed 27 Oct. 2023.
Congress. “About Congress.” About Congress | US Capitol – Visitor Center, www.visitthecapitol.gov/explore/about-congress. Accessed 27 Oct. 2023.
