On June 26, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on a District of Columbia statehood bill. It passed that chamber of Congress, but remains stalled in the other chamber, the U.S. Senate. This will be the second up or down vote for D.C. statehood to have occurred, the last time being in 1993 with that effort being voted down by a 2 to 1 margin. There have been multiple bills for an actual floor vote. In 2009, it was proposed that the current nonvoting delegate in the House of Representatives for D.C. be made a full voting representative in exchange for creating an extra Republican congressional district in Utah.
This, I believe, is the route to actually try again and not statehood as the District of Columbia is, first and foremost, the national seat of the United States government and was created as a federal district of such purpose. The purpose of this was to give Congress and other branches of government the authority and independence to operate with being dependent on state or local authorities for protection or services. An incident on June 21, 1783, illustrates this point when the Continental Congress was forced to flee from Philadelphia when “neither municipal nor state authorities would take action to protect their members” from about 80 or so unpaid Continental Army soliders who “physically threatened and verbally abused” those members. (Clause 17-Cornell Law School article)
Second, while the District of Columbia has a population of around 700,000, which is more than the population of Wyoming or Vermont. Its land area is only 68 square miles, leaving it well under half the size of Rhode Island or any sizeable city state for that matter. For further comparison, Kosciusko County is around 554 square miles, while Wayne Township is around 45 square miles. There really is no further room in Washington, D.C., for population growth or significant natural resources known at this time.
D.C. is certainly eligible and deserves having its current nonvoting delegate in the House of Representatives elevated into a full-fledged voting member of that chamber. As it is a congressional district that has been without representation for its entire history which violates the American principle of no taxation without representation. When it comes to representation in the Senate, the District of Columbia could be represented by the U.S. Senators from Maryland since it is on the north side of the Potomac River or be given just on U.S. Senator to directly represent its needs. Representation for Washington, D.C., in both chambers of Congress but not statehood is the best course of action to take.
My next letter in this series of letters on possible candidates for the 51st state will focus on U.S. territories.
