I’m driving home through Phoenix when I see this billboard, “D.C. Statehood is a Civil Rights Issue.” It’s unusual for a city on the other side of the country to be advertising about the nation’s capital, but it’s an issue the advertisers are right, but for the wrong reasons.
For those not aware, our capital city is in the District of Columbia, which is not in either of the two states that border it. It is a federal territory, which means that Congress controls the budget and many of the authority in the District… Which means the mayor and city council are weaker to solve their problems than any other metropolitan area in the country.
However, the activists who paid for this sign don’t give a hoot in hell for DC solving their own problems. They care because Washington D.C falls into a loophole in the US Constitution. When the document was ratified in 1787, the capital city was New York. It was moved to Philadelphia two years later, and eight years after that, to the swampy land asking the Potomac River. Because there was no clause outlining a capital city, it’s not mentioned in the Constitution, they weren’t treated like a state, just as part of the federal government. They didn’t even get to elect their own mayor until 1974!
Only states could vote for president, due to our strange electoral system, so it took the 23rd Amendment passing in 1961 so that the people living just down the street from the White House could actually vote for the person who lives there. However, they still don’t have votes in Congress, just a non voting delegate.
If DC becomes a state, that means it gets two senators and at least one representative, just like any other state. However, DC has always voted solid Democrat since it got the vote. What that means is that with the numbers in the Senate so close, the Democratic Party will have a majority that will be nigh impossible to overturn. Add Puerto Rico as a state and you’ve got a four seat majority that is secured until the Dems implode or civil war erupts.
And that’s the sad fact. I think DC and PR should be states! Add Guam and American Samoa while you’re at it. However, doing it now will cause a chain reaction you don’t wanna go down. Because if the other half of the country feels they have no voice in the federal government, red states will rebel (in courts), and either the feds will have to crack down into an authoritative state or back down and become weaker… and no one wants to go down either road.
Now I could be too pessimistic here, but it’s a real concern. But where am I getting it wrong? Is PR not as hard core Democrat as I think they are? Should we return DC to Maryland (Virginia already took their half back in the 1840s)? Let me know in the comments below!
While you’re at it, take a look at my books, and pick one up! If you’re not ready to take that $2 plunge, read one of my free stories and see what you think!
Albigensia Press 
An interesting piece!! Another solution presents itself … move the capital onto Federal land? 😉
Oooh… shrink DC to just the government buildings? That could work! Of course, I’m not sure Maryland wants Washington City back. 😀
Ha yes or maybe a construction boom in New Mexico beckons 😉
I’d say you’re not being pessimistic enough with the overall picture. The Left is doing everything it can to undermine election integrity. Immigrants should vote? Do they have any sort of a vested interest in the country? At best, citizenship laws should be cleaned up and streamlined so that immigrants can become citizens faster and then vote legally. felons should vote! Really? The founders had the common sense to realize anyone that would commit a felony level crime is a person of low integrity. They’re NOT victims as the SJW crowd would have everyone believe. Throwing open the borders is also part of this effort to get more immigrants to vote. Arizona tried to pass stricter (enforcement of) immigration laws and was told that was unconstitutional. California throws immigration laws out the window and it’s OK. Part of that is trying to keep their population stats up so they don’t completely bottom out their presence in congress. That’s another story though.
DC… I’d admit that on the surface, the situation seems unfair. So would having a capital controlled by one party that refuses equal protection to the other party. At the very least, there has to be some strict caveats attached to it’s statehood. So much of the story here is half-truths though. The pro-statehood movement will point out that DC actually pays higher PER CAPITA taxes than anywhere else. Yeah, the reason for that is that the richest area in the country is DC. Lobbying and graft are HUGE business.
I’m not so worried about what the Left will do with their voting grab attempt and other policies. I’m more worried about the backlash among the public afterwards. Remember that the 60s and early 70s led to some hard care “law and order” policies after that. The pendulum keeps swinging, further in each direction… Sooner or later the government is going to get the pendulum swinging far enough towards a police state that they lock it down there and nobody has any say.
Puerto Rico is not a guaranteed Dem state. Look at South Florida – the majority of Cuban Hispanics there vote Republican. Trump’s racist handling of the Hurricane Maria situation would likely cause him to lose in Puerto Rico, but not necessarily another candidate. There’s also the USVI down there to become a potential state. I think we should decide what we’re going to do with these “territories” – either they are states or they are not part of the US.
I forgot about the Virgin Islands! That would also work, although they could be included with PR (probably with disasterous results).
Give DC back to Maryland. No more small states. Fifty is a good round number. The territories should be given their independence. Those are my thoughts. Guam for Guam.
The simplest answer is the best. 🙂
The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution should have rendered the income tax as invalid.
Hence the 16th Amendment… 😉
The 16th Amendment was never properly ratified. Here is a video for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f94EysEzhg0