A demonstrator hands out signs demanding DC statehood during a protest in the District last year. Photo / Astrid Riecken, for The Washington Post
United States President Donald Trump’s decision to place Washington DC police under direct federal control and deploy some 800 National Guard troops in the city has spurred calls once again to make DC a state.
Democratic leaders and advocates contend that statehood could have protected the District of Columbia from Trump’s interference and shielded the city government from his threats of a broader federal takeover.
Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (Democrat), a longtime advocate for DC statehood, brought the issue to the forefront in a news conference yesterday, calling Trump’s actions “unsettling and unprecedented”.
“We know that access to our democracy is tenuous,” Bowser said. “This is why you have heard me and many, many Washingtonians before me, advocate for full statehood for the District of Columbia.”
Advocates had their best chance in the decades-long fight for statehood in 2021, when the House passed a bill to make DC the 51st state and Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress and the White House.
Even then, the legislation never made it to a Senate vote. The GOP’s current dominance in Washington makes the statehood movement even more of a long shot.
Here’s what to know about the unusual status of America’s capital and its more than 700,000 residents.
Why isn’t DC a state?
The framers of the US Constitution mandated the creation of the District of Columbia - a seat of the federal government over which Congress would “exercise exclusive legislation” - with the intention of creating a neutral place to conduct the business of the federal government during a time when the union between the former 13 colonies was still new.
In making DC a district and not a state, the framers denied its residents many of the rights held by other Americans.
They have no votes in Congress - they have a delegate in the House of Representatives who can participate in debates and committee work but cannot vote on legislation - and their local government has no control over the DC National Guard.
DC residents got a voice in their local government in 1820, when Congress allowed white male landowners, and later all white men, to vote for mayor. In 1867, black men were also granted the local vote.
Real estate developer Alexander Robey Shepherd was appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant to the powerful Board of Public Works.
His unbridled spending triggered an 1874 congressional investigation that uncovered conflicts of interest, influence peddling, no-bid contracts, and cost overruns. That year, Congress revoked home rule for everyone.
Washingtonians secured the right to vote for president via the 23rd amendment in 1961 and, before the passage of the 1973 Home Rule Act, unelected leaders appointed by the president ran the District.
The Home Rule Act has its limits. Congress can still veto local legislation and budgets.
And yesterday, Trump invoked Section 740 of the act, which gives the president the authority to take temporary control of the city’s police force if he “determines that special conditions of an emergency nature exist”.
“Though we pay taxes - in fact, we pay more than most states, per capita - we’re not a state,” Bowser said.
“We don’t control the DC National Guard. We don’t have senators or full autonomy. Limited home rule gives the federal government the ability to intrude on our autonomy in many ways.”
What would it take for DC to become a state?
Creating a new state would require an act of Congress - something that has so far eluded proponents of statehood, despite decades of activism on the issue.
The House voted on DC statehood in 1993, but the bill failed 277 to 153, with a large number of Democrats voting against it.
However the issue gained momentum around 2020 when protests in the wake of the death of George Floyd led the Trump Administration to deploy the National Guard in DC despite opposition from Bowser.
In June 2020, the House voted to declare DC the nation’s 51st state for the first time since the establishment of the District of Columbia, with just a single Democrat voting against it.
However the bill was not brought to the floor of the Republican-controlled Senate and was opposed by the White House. In 2021 it passed the House again, but also failed to progress, despite President Joe Biden supporting the issue.
What would DC statehood look like?
The Washington, DC Admission Act, championed by DC’s non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives, Eleanor Holmes Norton, proposed shrinking the federal government to a two-square-mile (5sq km) enclave including the White House, Capitol Hill, Supreme Court and other federal buildings that would remain under congressional control.
The rest of DC would be known as the state of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, named for famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass. The bill also proposed elections for two senators and one state representative.
The issue remains an important one for Democrats, tapping notions of equality and racial justice in a plurality black-city, with supporters claiming it would right historical wrongs and ensure voters are properly represented.
Norton (D) said in a statement last week that enacting her DC statehood bill was the “only permanent remedy that will protect DC’s ability to govern itself”.
“DC residents, a majority of whom are black and brown, are worthy and capable of governing themselves without interference from federal officials who are unaccountable to DC,” she said.
However, Republicans have criticised efforts to establish new representatives as a power grab by Democrats struggling to advance their agenda.
In May 2020, Trump said Republicans would be “very, very stupid” to allow DC to become a state because the city’s Democratic population would likely swell the party’s ranks in Congress. “No, thank you. That’ll never happen,” he told the New York Post at the time.
Critics also point to the city’s size and say statehood could mean it has undue influence over the federal government.
Proponents say that the city’s 700,000 residents make it comparable to other states like Delaware, Alaska, and Vermont and that DC residents pay more federal taxes than residents in 22 states.
In January, Norton and Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) announced they would introduce the statehood bill again, and Trump’s recent deployment of the National Guard to DC has reinvigorated the debate.
With Republican control of the House, Senate and White House, the chances of a DC statehood bill passing are slim.