D.C. residents are being asked to send a message to Congress on Tuesday that it’s time for the nation’s capital to become the 51st state.
Referendum B on D.C. statehood is the first time since 1982 that voters will be asked to approve a referendum on whether the District of Columbia should become a state. The referendum serves as a message to Congress that D.C. residents want the full rights and privileges of the states.
Elinor Hart, project director for New Columbia Vision, said Friday that Washingtonians need to have proper representation in Congress. That starts Tuesday, she said.
“It will say we have expressed ourselves in the 21st century,” she said. “As [D.C. Del.] Eleanor Holmes Norton says, we’ll never get statehood unless people know we want it. We have to let people know we want it, and I think this will do that.”
If approved, the referendum would allow the D.C. Council to petition Congress to create the state of Washington, D.C., approve a state constitution and approve the proposed state’s new boundaries.
The proposed boundaries shrink the federally administered District of Columbia that is required in the Constitution to just government buildings and the National Mall. The rest of the current district, all the residential areas, would become a state.
Under Article I Section 8 of the Constitution, Congress alone has the power over legislative affairs of the federal district encompassing the seat of government. Twelve years after the Constitution was ratified, that district became Washington, D.C.
Becoming a state would allow D.C. votes in Congress for the first time in the city’s history. Currently, the district has a non-voting delegate and a shadow senator representing its residents. Becoming a state would allow Washingtonians to have one voting member in the House and two senators.
However, Congress would need to pass a law approving the creation of the new state, and similar measures in the wake of the 1982 vote have died without much resistance.
Statehood faces strong resistance from Republicans, who say the District should remain the ward of the federal government.
This year’s Republican platform approved at the party’s national convention states that the District doesn’t just belong to the city’s residents but to all Americans. It also decried the influence of Democrats in running the city.
The D.C. Council, “backed by the current mayor, is attempting to seize from the Congress its appropriating power over all funding for the District,” the platform says. “The illegality of their action mirrors the unacceptable spike in violent crime and murders currently afflicting the city. We expect Congress to assert, by whatever means necessary, its constitutional prerogatives regarding the District.
“Statehood for the District can be advanced only by a constitutional amendment. Any other approach would be invalid. A statehood amendment was soundly rejected by the states when last proposed in 1976 and should not be revived.”
One of the reasons Republicans are against the idea of D.C. becoming a state is the city’s liberal leanings. Many Republicans are concerned that giving the District a voting seat in Congress could add to the Democratic caucus.
In 2009, lawmakers attempted to give D.C. a vote in Congress by expanding the House to 437 members from 435. D.C. would have taken one extra seat, while deeply Republican Utah would have received the other.
The movement for statehood has strong backing from President Obama and former President Bill Clinton, and Hart says it’s a movement that’s not going away soon.
Hillary Clinton has expressed her support for D.C. statehood and, should she be elected, Hart said statehood supporters will continue pushing lawmakers to bring D.C. residents on equal footing with the rest of the country.
“We’ve learned this has to be a sustained effort and we’ve got to make sure there’s always a bill up there,” she said, referring to the Capitol.
She added that Tuesday’s vote “will get us a little closer to achieving statehood. It won’t do it for us, but it will get us closer. If we don’t have statehood, then we don’t have the same rights as people in the 50 states do.”
The referendum will be on the back of the ballots on Tuesday.
