DC Admission Act

The Washington, DC Admission Act, often referred to simply as the DC Admission Act, is a bill introduced during the 116th United States Congress. The intention of the bill is to grant Washington, D.C. admission into the Union as a state. The bill was originally introduced in the 115th Congress on January 3, 2019, and was reintroduced on January 4, 2021, in the 117th Congress.

Washington, DC Admission Act
Full titleTo provide for the admission of the State of Washington, D.C. into the Union.
Colloquial name(s)DC Admission Act
Introduced in115th United States Congress
Introduced onMarch 1, 2017
Number of co-sponsors227
Effects and codifications
Act(s) affectedDistrict of Columbia Organic Act
District of Columbia Delegate Act
District of Columbia Home Rule Act
Reapportionment Act
Legislative history

Background

When the Constitution of the United States was prepared, one of the elements within its text provided for the establishment of a national capital. The new capital was to be no more than 10 square miles in area, and under the exclusive control of the federal government, rather than subject to any control by the states.[1] In 1790, the United States Congress passed the Residence Act, which legislated for the foundation of a new, permanent national capital, to be located along the banks of the Potomac River, using land donated by the states of Maryland and Virginia for the purpose. The area was a square shape, with each side no more than 10 miles long, providing a total area of a maximum of 100 square miles, and included both the new city being constructed along the north bank of the Potomac, which was named "Washington" in honor of George Washington, as well as the towns of Georgetown, Maryland, and Alexandria, Virginia.[2][3] The area as a whole, which came to be called the federal district, was named "Columbia", after a poetic name for the United States.[4][5] In 1801, Congress passed the District of Columbia Organic Act, which formally placed the District of Columbia under the control of the federal government. The District was also organised into two counties; Washington to the north and east of the river, and Alexandria to the south and west.[6] The Act meant that citizens living in the District were no longer considered to be residents of either Maryland or Virginia and, as a consequence, lost their representation in the United States Congress, their right to vote in the Electoral College and any voice in amending the Constitution.[7]

Since the passage of the District of Columbia Organic Act, there have been many attempts to extend the right to suffrage to residents of the District, which have largely focused on amending the Constitution, or ceding the land making up its area back to Maryland and Virginia. In 1846, the area of the District south of the Potomac was successfully returned to Virginia, leaving it encompassing the northern half.[8] However, it wasn't until 1961 and the passage of the 23rd Amendment that residents of the District were granted the right to vote in the presidential election. This treated the District as if it were a state for the purposes of the Electoral College, granting it an equal number of electors to the least populous state. In 1970, Congress passed the District of Columbia Delegate Act, which allowed for the election of a single, non-voting delegate representing the District to be elected to the House of Representatives.[9] In 1973, Congress then passed the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, which granted the District a measure of home rule through the establishment of an elected mayor and city council.[10]

In 1978, a new constitutional amendment was proposed that would have granted the District full representation in Congress and the Electoral College, as well as participation in the process to amend the Constitution, as if it were a state, without granting it actual statehood. Introduced by Representative Don Edwards of California, the legislation passed Congress when the Senate approved it on August 22, 1978, requiring it then go to the states for ratification. However, included in the text of the amendment was a requirement that it complete the ratification process (meaning three-quarters of the states were required to ratify it) within seven years. By the deadline given, which was August 22, 1985, only 16 of the required 38 states had ratified the amendment, meaning that failed to be adopted.[11] The failure of the Voting Rights Amendment saw the beginning of concerted efforts to bring about statehood for the District.

DC statehood movement
Main article: Statehood movement in the District of Columbia

Even before the failure of the Voting Rights Amendment, voters in the District began looking at the statehood option. In 1980, voters approved the creation of a constitutional convention to meet and draw up a proposed constitution for a new state, in the same manner as other territories had prior to their admission as states.[12] This was ratified by voters in 1982, with the plan for a state named as "New Columbia".[13] This constitution mandates the selection of a shadow congressional delegation of two senators and a representative to lobby Congress for statehood. In November 1993, a statehood bill made it to the full House of Representatives for debate and a vote for the first time, where it was defeated by 277 votes to 153.[14] Since then, a statehood bill was introduced every year without reaching a vote.[15]

In 2016, the Mayor of the District, Muriel Bowser, called for a vote by residents on whether they approved of the proposal of admitting the District as a state. In November of the same year, a referendum was held in which 85.69% of those that voted approved the motion to petition Congress for admission.[16] Following this, the City Council passed a resolution changing the proposed name from "New Columbia" (which had been on the ballot), to "State of Washington, DC", with "DC" standing for "Douglass Commonwealth", referring to Frederick Douglass, who lived in the District between 1877 and 1895.[17] In 2017, separate bills were introduced by the District's non-voting Delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, and Tom Carper, a senator from Delaware, for statehood, which again failed to reach a vote.

In 2019, following the 2018 election that saw the Democratic Party regain control of the House of Representatives, the Democratic leadership put its support behind the admission of the District as a state,[18] with Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, one of the 155 co-sponsors of the Bill introduced by Eleanor Holmes Norton in January 2019.[19] The House passed H.R. 1, a nonbinding resolution of support for statehood, in March 2019.[20]

In June 2020, during the George Floyd protests that were taking place across the country, President Trump called in the District of Columbia National Guard to clear protesters, an action that angered the District's mayor and council; owing to the District's status, the President of the United States is commander-in-chief of the National Guard, whereas in a state the commander-in-chief is the state's governor. On June 26, for the first time ever, DC Statehood was approved by a chamber of Congress, when the House voted by 232 to 180 to approve the Washington, DC Admission Act, thereby sending it to the Senate.[21] Again sponsored in the Senate by Tom Carper, with the majority of the Democratic caucus as co-sponsors, the bill was the first time that the issue of DC Statehood had reached the floor of the Senate.[22]

Provisions

The Washington, DC Admission Act would see a number of individual provisions related to the new state's admission:

  • The existing area of the District of Columbia would be admitted into the union as the 51st state. The new state would be named "Washington, Douglass Commonwealth".
  • A new federal district would be created within the boundaries of the new state. To be called the "Capital", the new district would encompass the White House, United States Capitol, United States Supreme Court Building, the principal federal buildings, and other federal monuments adjacent to the Capitol and the National Mall.[23]
  • The John A. Wilson Building is excluded from the Capital, as it would serve as the state capitol.
  • The new state would elect two members of the Senate and, initially, one member of the House of Representatives.
  • The House of Representatives would be permanently expanded to 436 members. Following the next census after admission, reapportionment would work out the number of representatives the new state would be entitled to based on its population.
  • The District of Columbia Delegate Act would be repealed.
  • An expedited process would be put in motion to introduce and ratify a new constitutional amendment repealing the 23rd Amendment, whose phrasing grants "[t]he District constituting the seat of Government of the United States...[a] number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State." If the existing District of Columbia were to become a state, the phrasing of this Amendment, if still in effect, would grant the new Capital territory at least three electors in the Electoral College, despite the fact that it would have a very small population, limited almost exclusively to government officials.
  • The residents in the Capital would be permitted to vote in the last state they resided in.
  • The current local representatives (Mayor and City Council) would transition to become the new state's Governor and State Legislature.

Opinion

A snap poll of registered voters, conducted by YouGov following the passing of the bill by the House of Representatives, found opinion remained divided on the issue, with 40% in favor of DC's admission as a state and 41% opposed. In this poll, 37% of respondents believed that admitting DC would favor Democrats over Republicans, although 30% felt it would benefit both parties equally.[24] A poll undertaken subsequent to this, in September 2020 by Data for Progress found that support for statehood was at 43%, which had increased by seven percent on a previous poll by the same group in March 2019.[25]

Timeline

Voting for the bill in the House of Representatives was along party lines, with Democrats in favor of admitting the District of Columbia as a state and Republicans opposed. In a response to the passing of the bill in the House, a number of Republican members of the Senate labeled the legislation as a "power grab" as, in their view, it would give the Democrats an almost guaranteed two seats in the United States Senate, given that the District has voted overwhelmingly Democrat for decades.[26] The Trump Administration also made clear that, were a bill admitting DC as a state to be passed by Congress, President Trump would veto it.[27]

The election of Joe Biden as President removed the threat of a presidential veto to such a bill, as Biden has declared his support to admitting DC.[28] However, Mitch McConnell, the then Senate Majority Leader, made it clear that while there remains a Republican majority in the Senate, any DC admission bill would not be granted a vote on the floor of the Senate. This would require the introduction of a new bill once the new session of Congress began on January 3, 2021.[28]

On January 4, Eleanor Holmes Norton, DC's non-voting delegate, reintroduced H.R. 51 into the 117th Congress with a record 202 co-sponsors.[29][30] On January 6, following the victory of the two Democratic candidates in the Senate elections in Georgia that gave the Democrats the majority, the Mayor of Washington, DC, Muriel Bowser, issued a statement renewing the call for statehood for the District, stating her desire to see a Statehood bill on the desk of President Biden within 100 days of the start of the new Congress.[31] The same day, the storming and occupation of the United States Capitol mainly by supporters of President Trump led to calls from others for the District's status to be changed; because of its status, the activation of the District of Columbia National Guard to provide assistance to local law enforcement required the consent of the Secretary of the Army, while the Governors of Virginia and Maryland were able to activate units of their states' National Guard directly.[32][33] On January 27, a companion bill, S. 51, was introduced into the Senate by Tom Carper with a record 38 co-sponsors.[34]

See also

References
  1. "Constitution of the United States". National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved July 22, 2008.
  2. "Georgetown Historic District". National Park Service. Retrieved July 5, 2008.
  3. "Alexandria's History". Alexandria Historical Society. Archived from the original on April 4, 2009. Retrieved April 4, 2009.
  4. Crew, Harvey W.; Webb, William Bensing; Wooldridge, John (1892). "IV. Permanent Capital Site Selected". Centennial History of the City of Washington, D.C. Dayton, OH: United Brethren Publishing House. p. 101. Retrieved June 1, 2011.
  5. "Get to Know D.C." Historical Society of Washington, D.C. Archived from the original on September 18, 2010. Retrieved July 11, 2011.
  6. Crew, Harvey W.; Webb, William Bensing; Wooldridge, John (1892). "IV. Permanent Capital Site Selected". Centennial History of the City of Washington, D.C. Dayton, OH: United Brethren Publishing House. p. 103.
  7. "Statement on the subject of The District of Columbia Fair and Equal Voting Rights Act" (PDF). American Bar Association. September 14, 2006. Retrieved August 10, 2011.
  8. Richards, Mark David (Spring–Summer 2004). "The Debates over the Retrocession of the District of Columbia, 1801–2004" (PDF). Washington History: 54–82. Archived from the original (PDF) on January 18, 2009. Retrieved January 16, 2009.
  9. "84 Stat. 845 - An Act to establish a Commission on the Organization of the Government of the District of Columbia and to provide for a Delegate to the House of Representatives from the District of Columbia". gov.info. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
  10. "District of Columbia Home Rule Act". Government of the District of Columbia. February 1999. Retrieved May 27, 2008.
  11. "The 1978 D.C. Voting Representation Constitutional Amendment". DC Vote. Retrieved March 19, 2018.
  12. "GUIDE TO THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA STATEHOOD CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION RECORDS, 1982". Library.gwu.edu. Retrieved July 7, 2016.
  13. "DC Statehood: a Chronology". DC Statehood Green Party. Archived from the original on October 26, 2006. Retrieved December 29, 2008.
  14. Eaton, William (November 22, 1993). "House Overwhelmingly Turns Down D.C. Statehood Bill". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
  15. Greenwood, Arin (December 20, 2012). "D.C. Statehood: Senate Bill By Joe Lieberman Would Make 'New Columbia' 51st State". The Huffington Post. Retrieved February 18, 2013.
  16. "DC Voters Elect Gray to Council, Approve Statehood Measure". 4 NBC Washington. November 8, 2016. Retrieved November 9, 2016.
  17. "DC Council approves name change if district becomes state". Washington Examiner. October 18, 2016. Retrieved April 5, 2017.
  18. "House leadership gives its blessing to D.C. statehood". The Washington Post. January 4, 2019.
  19. Thomas, Connor (January 18, 2019). "Pelosi Among 155 Cosponsors of DC Statehood Bill in House". The Hoya. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
  20. "The House finally voted to support D.C. statehood. It's a needed step". The Washington Post. March 12, 2019. Retrieved April 24, 2019.
  21. Millhiser, Ian (June 26, 2020). "DC is closer to becoming a state now than it has ever been". Vox. Retrieved August 9, 2020.
  22. "Norton Announces D.C. Statehood Bill Has Been Placed on Senate Floor Calendar for First Time in History". Congresswoman Eleanor Norton Holmes. September 10, 2020. Retrieved December 25, 2020.
  23. "Proposed State of Washington DC" (PDF). DC Statehood Commission. Government of the District of Columbia. October 19, 2016. Retrieved January 11, 2021.
  24. Sanders, Linley (June 26, 2020). "Registered voters split on whether Washington, D.C. should gain statehood". YouGov. Retrieved December 15, 2020.
  25. McElwee, Sean; Ray, John (8 September 2020). "Voters have moved in favor of DC and Puerto Rico statehood". Data for Progress. Retrieved December 15, 2020.
  26. "District of Columbia". 270 to Win. Retrieved December 15, 2020.
  27. Zaslav, Ali; Byrd, Hayley (July 1, 2020). "Senate Republicans fiercely oppose DC statehood as political 'power grab'". CNN Politics. CNN. Retrieved December 15, 2020.
  28. Lefrak, Mikaela (November 12, 2020). "After The 2020 Election Results, Here's What's Next For D.C. Statehood". American University Radio. Retrieved December 15, 2020.
  29. Robertson, Thomas (January 3, 2021). "DC statehood boasts record support in new Congress". WTOP News. Retrieved January 5, 2021.
  30. H.R. 51
  31. Coleman, Justine (January 6, 2021). "Bowser renews call for vote on DC statehood under Biden". The Hill. Retrieved January 7, 2021.
  32. Srikanth, Anagha (January 6, 2021). "DC statehood advocates sound off as National Guard is activated". The Hill. Retrieved January 7, 2021.
  33. Massimo, Rick (January 7, 2021). "Hogan: Federal approval to send National Guard during Capitol attack delayed". WTOP News. Retrieved January 8, 2021.
  34. Lefrak, Mikaela (January 27, 2021). "Record Number Of Senate Democrats Support D.C. Statehood Bill". DCist. Retrieved January 28, 2021.
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