Go Home Already: Shouts and Murmurs
Man Stops Traffic at 17th and K to Demand $200 Million
Compromise Uncertain on Same-Sex Marriage Law
Morning Roundup: Second Helpings Edition
Fire at 17th and L NW Forces Evacuations
A tip of the hat to the increasingly invaluable Loose Lips Daily for pointing out this Jonathan Stein piece in Mother Jones on the state of the D.C. statehood movement. Stein reminds us that even in the face of increasing insistence from voting rights leaders that we ought to focus on getting just one representative in the U.S. House, the president-elect is an open supporter of statehood. Still, Stein is right to note that Obama's support alone isn't likely to get the statehood movement anywhere anytime soon: it's an unpopular idea nationally, and Republicans would do everything in their power to stop it.
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I'm probably the only DC resident who feels this way but I think that making DC 'just another one of the states' will take something away from the identity of the District. What will we be? The State of the District of Columbia? The State of Columbia? We sure can't be The State of Washington, that's already taken!
I whole-heartedly feel we should have all proper and equal representation in government just like the states, but I think we should remain a neutral district as it was intended to be upon its founding. Becoming a state will reduce our standing as America's Capital and make us nothing more than the smallest state (in land size) and the jerks that made everyone buy a new US flag with 51 stars on it, just because we felt selfish.
Give us voting representation, or let us out of Federal taxation, I'm all for that! I'm all for Congress keeping their big nose out of our business... but I'm NOT for completely uprooting the principle idea behind the DISTRICT of Columbia! We're not a state, we're better then a state, so let's act like it!
A District by any other name would smell as sweet.
it's an unpopular idea nationally, and Republicans would do everything in their power to stop it
suck it, congressional minority
The "gold standard" for residents of the fifty states is that they get to grant (or withhold) their consent to how they are governed by voting for five national officeholders: President, Vice- President, an House Representative, and two Senators. That same right for DC denizens to vote for those five national offices, plus a substantial degree of DC autonomy (such as limiting the legislative authority of Congress over the District "in all cases whatsoever" to matters of compelling national interest, such as those that could garner super-majorities in both houses) would go a long way to meeting the bedrock principle that "just [ie, legitimate] power derives from the consent of the governed." Full statehood would not be essential if the above reforms were made (IMHO).