Residents of Washington, D.C. have long protested the fact that they lack representation in the federal government beyond the non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives, Eleanor Holmes Norton. The danger this second-class status poses to the District of Columbia was highlighted twice in the past six months: once last June when President Donald Trump activated the D.C. National Guard against peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters, and again on Jan. 6 when he declined to activate the Guard to support Capitol police in protecting the Capitol from insurrectionists Trump himself had incited. The mayor of D.C. has no power over its own National Guard troops.
Last June, the House of Representatives passed a D.C. statehood bill for the first time, but it failed to pass in the Senate and must be now reintroduced in the new Congress. The Senate needs 60 votes to pass the measure unless the body eliminates the filibuster. However, many Senate Republicans assert that a constitutional amendment would be needed to grant D.C. statehood.
Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Bo Shuff, executive director of DC Vote, who explains that when the forefathers met in Philadelphia to establish the new U.S. government, they created a separate federal district to protect members of Congress, the president, and other U.S. officials from violent assaults by disgruntled actors from any of the states. Here he also discusses the role of race in denying equal representation to the district’s 700,000 residents.
BO SHUFF: The entire reason was to make sure the Congress would always be protected from any sort of insurgent mob because they would control all of the federal district. Great concept. Doesn’t work. We found out two weeks ago and a day (Jan. 6) that doesn’t work, that you do in fact need some kind of local law enforcement or state-level law enforcement, because, while the Capitol is well policed, it’s not policed at a level that can deal with some sort of emergency situation. Their staffing levels are appropriate for monitoring the buildings and keeping the buildings safe on a consistent basis. And so, even though Congress has full control over the District of Columbia, we, technically have an independent local police force, and that’s the body that had to be called in to rescue the Capitol building two weeks ago.
The concept that’s proposed for D.C. statehood would maintain a federal district so that we’re still complying with the Constitution of the U.S. All the pieces on the postcards – the Capitol building, the Jefferson Memorial, the White House, the Supreme Court building – all of that would stay in a federal district that belongs to all of America because it should be all of America’s capital. It should belong to all of the people and that area would be policed and protected by Congress, and they would make all the decisions about it, because it’s their home. It is the People’s House, and therefore they make the decisions about the People’s Capital. The rest of the space – there are 712,000 of us who live here, and we don’t live in that area – nobody’s house is in a postcard. We have neighborhoods and jobs and businesses and we deserve full, equal representation just like every other state. And the only way to do that on a permanent basis is statehood. And so the remainder of that land would be carved around and turned into the 51st state.
MELINDA TUHUS: Bo Sheff, what is the connection between D.C.’s lack of representation and race? The city was majority black since after the Civil War, but the percentage of D.C. residents who are black has dropped from about 60 percent to about 46 percent since 2000 and the white population has increased in that time from about 30 percent to about 42 percent.
BO SHUFF: As time develops, D.C. becomes one of the first places to free the slaves, to end slavery, before the entire country. So, the North is working on it, but none of the South is. And before the Emancipation Proclamation is signed, D.C. frees slaves. That makes D.C. the southernmost city for freed slaves or escaped slaves leaving the South, which means D.C.’s African American population booms, and Congress is now less and less interested in granting voting rights and representation to the District of Columbia.
And that’s what we see continue and what we see in all kinds of issues around representation and enfranchisement and voting. Even if you look at the most recent election we just had: the ballots that were challenged were in Philadelphia and Atlanta and Detroit and Milwaukee, and that’s it. And those are the most heavily African American populated cities in each of those states. So we see this time and time again — that racial overtones are laid upon voter suppression and denial of representation, and that’s the exact same issue that we deal with here in the district as it relates to statehood.
MELINDA TUHUS: Bo Shuff, I know Eleanor Holmes Norton has been in Congress for decades as the non-voting D.C. delegate in the House of Representatives. And now, in the completely Democrat-dominated federal government, what do you think are the chances of winning statehood over the next few years? Has Biden spoken out in favor of statehood?
BO SHUFF: Yeah, a couple of times. He’s in favor of statehood for DC; Senate Majority Schumer has as well, and so has Speaker Pelosi. It’s not a completely partisan issue. In 2007 and 2009 for example, there was a big push to just get Eleanor Holmes Norton a vote; like, she doesn’t have the ability to vote on the floor, and so there was this effort to get her seat made into a full congressional seat – no statehood, but just one vote. And that ended up failing on a bipartisan effort. The last time statehood was brought to the floor of the House, it was defeated, which was I think ’92, it was defeated in a bipartisan way – the Democrats didn’t vote for it. So, it’s less about partisanship and it’s more about the education and awareness that the coalition of groups supporting statehood at the national level has brought to this most recent fight.
In 2016, this whole thing changed when we put statehood on the ballot in the District of Columbia for the first time in a long time, and voters were in a favor by 86 percent, which is huge. And that really got the attention of a bunch of different organizations and elected officials that there’s a real significant desire here and it’s an unbelievable injustice, and we at DC Vote especially started to build the power of the issue outside of the Congress and outside of elected officials, which hadn’t been done in a concerted way in a long time. I think that’s what’s led to the present success, coupled with amazing work by the mayor in her relationships across the country, and obviously Rep. Norton in the House.
Once people learn about this they know it’s an injustice. And, it’s un-American and it leaves a hole in the heart of our democracy. And once they learn it, they are eager to get involved. So we hope that will continue and we hope to pass it through the House and the Senate and have it signed by the president this year.
For more information, visit DC Vote at dcvote.org.
