Posted on 11/07/2016 7:03:06 PM PST by nickcarraway
When D.C. voters head to the polls Tuesday, they’ll have the chance to weigh in on a push by city leaders to gain statehood status for the District.
Even if the ballot referendum passes — as expected— the long-shot effort to make D.C. the 51st state remains far from a done deal.
But D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser says giving voters the opportunity to approve a proposed constitution and boundaries is an essential part of the statehood strategy — and the timing may be just right, she says.
“We wanted to have our house in order in D.C. and work with a new president and a new Congress to finally get an admissions act for D.C. passed in the Congress,” Bowser told WTOP on the eve of the election.
Bowser said city officials learned from a previous failed effort early in President Barack Obama’s first term — when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress.
Despite the advantage of “like-thinking people in the White House and the Congress,” in early 2009, the District lacked an up-to-date voter-approved Constitution, and a statehood effort fizzled. At the time, the most recent constitution OK’d by the voters dated back to a previous statehood push in the early 1980s.
“And one reason why we pushed so hard this year to have a new constitution and a new vote is because we never want to be in that position again,” Bowser said.
As for pitching statehood to Congress, Bowser said she stresses that D.C. statehood doesn’t have to be a partisan issue.
“Taxpaying Americans in Washington, D.C. are no different than anybody in Maryland and Virginia or any of the other 50 states except we don’t have single vote in Congress,” Bowser said. “Our congresswoman doesn’t vote and we don’t have any senators to speak up for us — and that has to change.”
The polls open in D.C. Tuesday at 7 a.m. and stay open until 8 p.m. More than 101,000 D.C. residents cast ballots during early voting, which Bowser referred to as a “historic turnout” for pre-Election Day voting in the District. That’s 20 percent of all registered voters in D.C. and 40 percent higher than the number of voters who cast an early ballot in 2012, according to the D.C. Board of Elections.
In addition to the statehood referendum, voters will also decide whether to return former Mayor Vincent Gray — whom Bowser defeated in the 2014 Democratic mayoral primary campaign — to the D.C. Council.
Gray, who defeated Bowser ally Yvette Alexander in the June primary race, is expected to win back his old Ward 7 council seat.
Bowser said she is prepared to work with new members of the council, who generally share her priorities, such as affordable housing, improving schools and boosting economic development, she said.
“I look forward to working with all of the members of the council on their priorities, on the priorities of our administration, which really reflect what the residents of the District of Columbia want,” she said.
If we can give them NOVA it might be worth it.
uh, no. half to Md. and half to Va. no 2 senators guys, sorry.
Wasn’t the whole idea for DC not to be a state and be separate from them.
A city wants the political power of a state.
No.
Oh - and you need to Amend the US Constitution.
Double no.
Article I, Section 8: “The Congress shall have power … To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States.” Congress has the same power over “forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings”—and it’s obvious that Congress can’t give a Navy pier or a federal building a seat in the House.
A totally Democrat electoral vote. What a great idea!
So if the District of Corruption gets statehood, where do we move the national capitol to? We sure don’t want to leave it in that sewer.
The national government can not be represented in the national government, that’s ridiculous!
Nevermind it’s unconstitutional.
If they get statehood, we should move the national capital to the middle of Kansas.
When you go back to the late 1700s....DC was a paper concept, which was firmly attached to land speculation. The original idea was that the seat of the national government would be there, and rich folks would want to own property in this national capital (like Paris or London, at the time).
The original district was 100 square miles, and the stones to mark the district were laid out in 1791. If you look at the original district...roughly 10-percent of it was swampy land.
Because of the slave trade being still allowed in Alexandria and Arlington....Congress deemed it necessary to dump those sections of the district back to Virginia in 1846.
The thing is...on the topic of statehood...if you go to the upperclass west-side of DC....no one cares. On the east-side (the poor part of the district), this is used as some fake hyped up political topic to keep the poor in this area all aggravated and talking about this....rather than real issues (like the lack of police protection).
I lived for 3.5 years in the Arlington area and it just amazed me how many little odd events happened in DC, and the national news just skipped right over them. Crime, corruption, and just bizarre events.
Why should they become a state? The lands originally belonged to Virginia and Maryland. The states gave up the land in order to create D.C.
If they want to become a state, let the land revert back to its original owners and be part of those states.
Better yet, dissolve D.C. altogether, and operate a tiny Fed gov’t from one office building! “That’ll learn’em!”
Not going to happen.
Asking the GOP to create three more Democratic seats is about the least likely thing.
AK and HI were admitted together because they preserved the partisan balance.
DC does the opposite.
They already have three electoral votes.
If they become a city state, they’ll have 2 Democratic senators and a Democratic representative at large.
And what’s in it for Congress?
All it takes is Hillary’s loaded Supreme Court to will it, and DC and Puerto Rico become new permanent members of the Dem voting base.
I didn’t know a swamp could become a state.
You're conveniently forgetting something: it's not about Republican vs. Democrat, it's about the elite vs. the rest of us.
The Republican party showed us already that it was against us when they pushed Cruz, who is obviously ineligible, in preference to the outsider that is Trump. They've shown us by allowing the Affordable Care Act to stand when it would be the easiest thing in the world to get rid of (simply cite the Constitutional right
to the "privacy of medical files [from the government]" and how the ACA mandates access to those selfsame files; kick it to the Supreme Court and laugh maniacally as they decide which to get rid of), and then there's Benghazi, Fast & Furious, the Iran Deal (which is provably treason).
No, the Republicans have been aiding and abetting the evil we are seeing.
Tried in 1978 with the District of Columbia Voting Rights Amendment. It was overwhelmingly rejected by the States. Since then, Liberals have tried to get Democratic DC Members of Congress with full voting rights without using proper procedure (the amendment process). Statehood is just one of these gimmicks. It has never come close to succeeding.
Bump
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