Should Washington, D.C., Be a State?

Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 51, the bill which would make a new state out of most of Washington, D.C. Even prior to that vote, there were people proposing the following design for a new flag with 51 stars:  

Finally Projected

“Taxation and Representation” was the title of a blog article I posted back in June 2016. It was partly about Washington, D.C., where, I wrote, “there is taxation but no representation on the federal level.” I also said, “Statehood for the District is one possible solution to the problem.”

At that time, I really didn’t think there was much chance of that coming about, even though most of the D.C. license plates since 2000 have complained, “Taxation without Representation.”

Here is an image of the D.C. license plates issued since August 2017: 

The issue is even more than that of taxation, of course. The citizens of D.C. are denied most of their (small “d”) democratic rights and privileges. They have no Senators and no voting member of the House of Representatives.

But, finally, on April 22 the Washington, D.C. Admission Act (H.R. 51) was passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 216-208. Every voting Democrat voted Yea; every voting Republican voted Nay.

The House vote was in harmony with the results of the November 2016 D.C. referendum on statehood for the District of Columbia. Nearly 86% of those who voted approved the appeal for statehood.

Flimsily Rejected

Republicans almost unanimously have rejected the idea of statehood for the District of Columbia. (Are there any prominent Republicans who favor statehood for D.C.? I couldn’t come up with any.)

One objection is that D.C. is too small to be a state. Even George Will began his anti-statehood 4/21 opinion article by pointing out that the land area of the proposed state of Washington, D.C., would be only 1/18 the size of Rhode Island.

But why in the world should land area have anything to do with statehood? It is population that is important, and currently, D.C. has around 715,000 residents, considerably more than Wyoming (at around 570,000) and Vermont (approximately 625,000).

Will does suggest that D.C. be made a part of the state of Maryland, which would create the 18^th largest state with a population of more than 6,780,000. But would that be fair to the citizens of D.C.—or of Maryland?

The size of D.C. measured by population (or area) is obviously not the reason for the Republican opposition. The main issue is that fewer than 38% of D.C. residents are non-Hispanic Whites and the 62% of the population who are PoC vote primarily for the Party that is for greater racial equality.

Firmly Supported

Last week, my FB Friend Rob Marus posted this on Facebook: “I have been, for nearly 20 years now, a citizen of the District of Columbia. . . . However, nearly 250 years after the Revolutionary War, I am still denied voting representation in Congress.”

Ben Jealous, who was the president and CEO of the NAACP from 2008 to 2013, wrote an April 28 article titled “D.C. Statehood is a Voting Rights Issue—and Racial Justice Issue.” That is probably a correct assessment of the situation. 

That same day, the Montgomery County Council (in the Maryland county adjacent to D.C.) again passed a resolution in support of D.C. statehood. The Council president said, “The indefensible disenfranchisement of 700,000 residents is one of the remaining civil rights injustices of our time.”

These reasons, and many more, are clearly delineated on the  statehood (dc.gov) website, and I encourage you to click on and read the content on this webpage: “Why Statehood for D.C.”

If you are in favor of democracy and the civil rights of all U.S. citizens, as I definitely am, then you have good reason to be a firm supporter of statehood for D.C.

Taxation and Representation

When I was in Washington, D.C., this month, once again I saw many license plates with the words “taxation without representation” on them. The newest plates with those words look like this: 

The issue, of course, is that the citizens of D.C. must pay federal income tax just as all U.S. citizens do, but they do not have representation in Congress. The words “taxation without representation” were first used on some D.C. license plates in 2000—but, as you know, it was expressing a sentiment from long ago.

A Boston pastor used the phrase “no taxation without representation” in a sermon as early as 1750. After the Stamp Act of 1765 it became common for the colonists to exclaim that “taxation without representation is tyranny.”

Have you seen the new U.S. postage stamps that were issued on May 29? They commemorate the 250th anniversary of the repeal of the Stamp Act in 1766. These new “forever” stamps are sold only as souvenir sheets of 10 stamps and are $4.70. 

The USPS website explains: “The commemorative stamp art depicts a crowd gathered around a ‘liberty tree’ to celebrate the repeal of the Stamp Act.” Such “liberty trees” were “found in a number of cities throughout the colonies, and were popular gathering spots for community meetings, political discussions, celebrations and more.”

The new British legislation required American colonists to pay a tax on a wide array of paper materials, such as newspapers, legal documents, mortgages, contracts—and even playing cards. A revenue stamp embossed on those papers indicated payment of the tax.

Many colonists were not happy with the new tax, to say the least. Accordingly, the USPS website also says that the Stamp Act, which was passed by the British Parliament in March 1765, “proved historic in galvanizing and uniting the American colonies, setting them on a path toward independence.”

The first chapter of The Beginnings of the American Revolution (1910) by Ellen Chase is sub-titled “Stamp Act Causes Riot,” and then the second chapter is “The Colonies Unite Successfully for Repeal.” Thus, actions resulting from the negative reaction toward the Stamp Act was a major impetus toward the colonists’ declaration of independence from Great Britain on July 4, 1776.

The tax levied by the Stamp Act was not exorbitant; it was the principle that rankled the colonists. As Chase says, “The exception was not taken to the tax in itself. . . . The objections rose solely from Parliament’s assumption of supremacy in the Colonies’ internal affairs” (p. 23).

For a long time after independence from Great Britain, however, U.S. citizens mostly had representation without taxation. There was an excise tax placed on whiskey in 1791—but that led to the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794.

The first personal income tax resulted from the Revenue Act signed into law by President Lincoln in August 1861. He who wanted government “of the people, by the people, for the people” needed to raise money to pay for the Civil War activities of the Union.

The first permanent income tax in this country, though, was not established until 1913—and the first general sales tax not until 1930.

In D.C. now, though, there is taxation but no representation on the federal level. Statehood for the District is one possible solution to the problem.

However, the “party of Lincoln” that freed the slaves in spite of strong objection by the Democratic Party then does not want to grant statehood now to a territory that would most probably send Democrats to the U.S. Congress. As I wrote earlier, the Parties have switched positions.