Nowadays, the Left is prone to make arguments about the dangers of plutocracy. So damaging is the inordinate power of the wealthy in their minds that Democrats keep proposing, and in 2014 voted in the U.S. Senate, to strip the Constitution’s First Amendment of its guarantee of free political speech.
In that light, last week’s antics over D.C. statehood are fairly rich. It is a campaign to enfranchise the privileged, to give vastly disproportionate representation in Congress to the wealthiest and most politically connected city in America.
It’s true. If Washington, D.C., became a state, it would be the state with the highest per capita income than any state in the U.S. The median household income in D.C. trails only one state: Maryland. Would Democrats really want to pass a bill creating the most privileged Senate seats and congressional seat in the country?
It may be unfair that Washingtonians have no voting representation in the House or Senate. But that can be fixed without giving them a sweetheart deal.
It is fair to ask why, if small-state residents such as Vermonters, Delawareans, Montanans, and Wyomingites get a congressman and two senators, why shouldn’t Washingtonians as well? After all, Washington’s population is greater than two of the states just mentioned.
But the fact is, those states were not expected to remain so small, and they may not yet. Meanwhile, whereas their statehood cannot be revoked without their consent, an established U.S. state already has claim to the territory on which Washington now stands.
The Constitution’s Article I, Section 8 deliberately allowed Congress to create Washington, D.C., as a no man’s land with no state interests as the seat of government. It was to be governed directly by the national legislature, and as a nonstate it was given no representation of its own.
Congress passed the law in 1790 that formally removed Virginia’s and Maryland’s authority over their respective sections of the District, beginning no later than 1800. Washington’s original territory west of the Potomac was given back to Virginia in 1846. If any part of what’s left of Washington ever ceases to be the no man’s land that Congress created, then by right it should be returned to Maryland in similar fashion.
In the interest of keeping a neutral capital site, it would be fair and just to change Washington’s status through the retrocession of its residential neighborhoods, possibly all of the land but the Capitol, the National Mall, the White House, and the monuments.
The population of the District, or rather, Washington city, is just about equal to one congressional district. If D.C. became part of Maryland, then Maryland would gain one congressional district, and it would basically be made up of the former district. So then Washingtonians would have a voting member in the House.
They would also get the services of Maryland’s two U.S. senators and fall under the governance of a state capitol, in this case Annapolis, like all other cities.
This is the exact same deal that every other city in America gets. Washingtonians deserve representation, the same representation as everyone else. But this attempt to create an entirely new state for themselves flies in the face of their city’s history. Moreover, like the attempts to divide California into multiple states, it is a gimmick, an attempt by one political party to gain two U.S. Senate seats for free.
D.C. residents should not be allowed to have it both ways. They already have a pretty sweet deal. If they don’t like the status quo, then Congress should let them rejoin Maryland, the state to which they previously belonged.
