Thank you for this thoughtful piece on Constitution Day. As a D.C. native, I'm still peeved that D.C. residents pay federal taxes (the most per capita in the country) yet don't have representation. My mom was born and raised in D.C., served our country abroad, and worked at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for many years before retiring. She died several years ago having never been represented in the U.S. Congress. That is just plain un-American, in my view.
Interestingly, the D.C. Voting Rights Amendment won support from many people one might not expect, including Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Responding to concerns from newly enfranchised African American voters in his home state, he went on the floor of the Senate to defend the amendment, saying that the fight for "human rights begins here at home in the nation's capital."
Thank you for sharing that. It’s really surprising there has been no resolution in 200 years. As a native Marylander, I always assumed we might one day revert back to the pre-1807 rule and bring them into the Maryland/Virginia fold.
The problem with that solution ("retrocession") is that neither the people of DC nor the people of Maryland want to do it. It's like asking the people of Maine (where I now live) to go back to being part of Massachusetts. Unthinkable!
The Constitution says the seat of the federal government can be no more than 10 miles square (100 square miles), and the original DC was exactly that. But it shrank to its current 68 or so with the retrocession of Alexandria and the VA side back to VA in 1847. So the best solution would be to shrink it even further, down to the 2 square miles downtown where the federal government sits. The rest of the area would then become its own state.
As an on-again, off-again DC resident I remain equally peeved about the absolute unfairness of the fact that we do not have representation. Meanwhile, Texas maintains the right to split into five states if they want! I agree with you (sorry Scott) that we don't want to be part of Maryland or VA. And it's an interesting proposal to shrink DC down and create a new state that would encircle it. As long as my capital hill home is in the new state and not the tiny remaining district!
I think this is precisely the challenge with resolving the issue. I don’t think you’re going to find 37 sympathetic states to statehood creation unless there is a second state to enter at the same time. I know DC residents want empathy but overlook very simple truths like it does not affect most states and how difficult a 51-star flag is to look at. I wish there were principled issues at play here but there are not. Convince Puerto Rico to embrace statehood and maybe it happens. Even then, probably not. So you either remain in the status quo or look for a more easily acceptable solution.
Thank you for this thoughtful piece on Constitution Day. As a D.C. native, I'm still peeved that D.C. residents pay federal taxes (the most per capita in the country) yet don't have representation. My mom was born and raised in D.C., served our country abroad, and worked at Walter Reed Army Medical Center for many years before retiring. She died several years ago having never been represented in the U.S. Congress. That is just plain un-American, in my view.
Interestingly, the D.C. Voting Rights Amendment won support from many people one might not expect, including Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Responding to concerns from newly enfranchised African American voters in his home state, he went on the floor of the Senate to defend the amendment, saying that the fight for "human rights begins here at home in the nation's capital."
Thank you for sharing that. It’s really surprising there has been no resolution in 200 years. As a native Marylander, I always assumed we might one day revert back to the pre-1807 rule and bring them into the Maryland/Virginia fold.
The problem with that solution ("retrocession") is that neither the people of DC nor the people of Maryland want to do it. It's like asking the people of Maine (where I now live) to go back to being part of Massachusetts. Unthinkable!
The Constitution says the seat of the federal government can be no more than 10 miles square (100 square miles), and the original DC was exactly that. But it shrank to its current 68 or so with the retrocession of Alexandria and the VA side back to VA in 1847. So the best solution would be to shrink it even further, down to the 2 square miles downtown where the federal government sits. The rest of the area would then become its own state.
As an on-again, off-again DC resident I remain equally peeved about the absolute unfairness of the fact that we do not have representation. Meanwhile, Texas maintains the right to split into five states if they want! I agree with you (sorry Scott) that we don't want to be part of Maryland or VA. And it's an interesting proposal to shrink DC down and create a new state that would encircle it. As long as my capital hill home is in the new state and not the tiny remaining district!
I think this is precisely the challenge with resolving the issue. I don’t think you’re going to find 37 sympathetic states to statehood creation unless there is a second state to enter at the same time. I know DC residents want empathy but overlook very simple truths like it does not affect most states and how difficult a 51-star flag is to look at. I wish there were principled issues at play here but there are not. Convince Puerto Rico to embrace statehood and maybe it happens. Even then, probably not. So you either remain in the status quo or look for a more easily acceptable solution.