Record support within the Democratic Party for making the nation’s capital a state, including official backing from President Biden and the White House, pushed a bill for Washington, D.C., statehood to a congressional hearing on Monday.
In response, Republicans are upping their defense against the potential massive power shift statehood would pose by hammering arguments asserting the bill’s unconstitutionality.
“D.C. is a pawn being used by congressional Democrats to gain power, all without regard to the constitutional and practical issues that making the district a state presents,” said Republican North Carolina Rep. Virginia Foxx.
The statehood bill in the House, appropriately numbered H.R. 51, has 214 Democratic co-sponsors, enough to pass the House outright. But it would run into a roadblock in the evenly split Senate due to the legislative filibuster that essentially requires support from 60 senators. The Senate version of the bill, S.B. 51, has 41 Democratic co-sponsors.
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“The disenfranchisement of Washingtonians is one of the remaining glaring civil rights and voting rights issues of our time,” Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser said in testimony to the the House Committee on Oversight and Reform on Monday.
Democrats and district statehood advocates brushed off most constitutional arguments as shields to disguise opposition to the political ramifications of adding two likely Democratic senators to Congress. But constitutional issues have long plagued advocacy for Washington, D.C., statehood, with many, but not all, scholars arguing that turning the city into a state would require a constitutional amendment.
Because the Constitution recognizes the District of Columbia, the bill would carve out land occupied by federal buildings to be the federally recognized district, a move that Republicans say goes against the spirit of the Constitution.
Arizona Republican Rep. Paul Gosar pointed to Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution that authorizes Congress to use legislation to manage “such District (not exceeding ten Miles square)” and “exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings.”
“It sounds like the Constitution clearly contemplates the district to be an actual city, doesn’t it?” Gosar said. He asked Bowser: “Your proposal makes the National Mall, the White House, and the Capitol complex the new district in the Constitution. Where are the forts going to be, and where are the dockyards going to be?”
“Your question may be somewhat outdated, sir,” Bowser responded. “When we think about the threats to our nation, we see it not in the form of people descending on the district, where we need to be on high ground to defend. What we’ve seen, actually, in our most recent history, that our — our threats are domestic,” she added, referring to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol building.
The other key piece of the constitutionality argument is the 23rd Amendment, which provides that the district has as many Electoral College votes that it “would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State.” In approving that amendment, conservatives argue, Congress codified the district’s status as a large-population area not admissible as a state.
“Admitting the District of Columbia in this way sets a dangerous precedent because of the many constitutional issues that are unique to the district. It’s certain that years of litigation would follow this decision,” said Zach Smith of the Heritage Foundation, an expert witness for the hearing.
Some members noted that the District of Columbia, being so small in size, has an economy dependent on government activities and tourism and could not create an economic impact.
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Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, ranking member on the committee, floated the possibility of statehood for the district, spurring other states to “split” and try and create more states, such as movements advocating turning California into multiple states.
“Should every city have two U.S. senators?” Comer asked Bowser, who did not directly answer the largely rhetorical question.
