Senator Rounds: Another Republican with an absurd argument against D.C. statehood

[RigelT]

@alahmnat

@RigelT

The goal is to alleviate the concern of one represented state becoming responsible for the seat of federal government, a legitimate puzzle - of what severity I’m not sure - but I haven’t yet seen it addressed directly. I, too, am curious how it will get resolved.

I’m not sure why you and WhyBother keep overlooking the whole part of this plan where the seat of federal government is simply reduced to the parts of land where the federal government actually operates, leaving it in exactly the same position it’s in now: surrounded by a state but not part of it. Nothing about making DC a state violates that constitutional requirement.

I agree, that’s exactly what needs to be in the federal proposal for DC statehood to resolve it. Has that actually been officially proposed? All I’m seeing is a lot of retorts about South Dakota.

[wazroth]

Ah, yes, you’re right – I was reading too much into the statement and attributing incorrectly the meaning “universe is expanding and will continue to expand indefinitely”, which is clearly NOT what it says. Retracted!

[WhyBother]

@RigelT

I agree, that’s exactly what needs to be in the federal proposal for DC statehood to resolve it. Has that actually been officially proposed? All I’m seeing is a lot of retorts about South Dakota.

There’s a House bill, yes.

[RigelT]

More specifically:

https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/51

(Sec. 111) This subtitle declares that the state shall consists of all of District territory as of enactment of this bill, with specified exclusions for federal buildings and monuments, including the principal federal monuments, the White House, the Capitol Building, the U.S. Supreme Court Building, and the federal executive, legislative, and judicial office buildings located adjacent to the Mall and the Capitol Building, District territory excluded from the state shall be known as the Capital and shall be the seat of the federal government.

IMHO, this should be the argument everyone’s making against Senator Rounds rather than the South Dakota thing.

[mcsnee]

@WhyBother

Lets set aside the notion of statehood for a second and get to the real issue, the disenfranchisement of Americans in D.C. If we grant that we should ignore the logic of why the district was created in the first place, and assuming (naively) that there will never major jurisdictional issues, then the the surest fix to disenfranchisement is STILL not to make D.C. a state, it is to return the land and the people to the state of Maryland, who donated it in the first place.

As a resident of DC, let me be the first to tell you that you can fuck right off with retrocession. If I wanted to live in Maryland, I’d fucking well move to Maryland.

If the district were itself a member of the sate, then it becomes a jurisdictional nightmare, and there is no reason to believe the Feds would actually have any power there (barring a slew of new amendments to the Constitution to give them such power).

HR 51 (or at least the version of it that passed the House last time) maintains a federal district consisting of the downtown federal buildings. The rest of DC–where people actually live–becomes Douglass Commonwealth.

EDIT: We also have to run our security decisions–like, say, calling out the national guard to, say, stop a bunch of rednecks from, say, marching on the Capitol to murder lawmakers–through the federal government. I know; it’s crazy. That’d never happen.

[lava]

#DCStatehood is really about packing the Senate with Democrats in order to pass a left-wing agenda.

Dems pass a left-wing agenda? Now thats a laugh.

[mcsnee]

@WhyBother

Trying to carve some new slightly smaller Federal zone out of some new donut-shaped state doesn’t fix the issue for even a few decades. It would just be kicking the can down the road.

Yeah, no. That’s bullshit. There was (1) never any belief that the federal government would need one hundred square miles for government office buildings. And (2) the federal district that would remain consists of land owned by the federal government in the downtown area of DC. The only people who live there are the President and his family.

[gatto]

@WhyBother

And this is to say nothing of the fact that it’s a blatant grab for an easy 3 electors in the electoral college.

covered in the other thread. but dc-ers ( dc-ites? marvel at the possibilities ) already has 3 electors, if you make it part of maryland they in fact lose the votes they currently have.

what they don’t have is 2 senators and a rep who can vote. they deserve those 2 senators regardless, but especially seeing as the senate is a being used in an undemocratic fashion to continually block changes that dc residents want.

i personally favor giving all people who are living in us territories – including native territories – voting representation as well, and then let the chips fall where they will.

based on polls, i suspect the country is wildly more left leaning than our government – but give everyone a voice and lets find out.

[chenille]

Kicking what can down the road exactly? Plainly decisions about representation are not intended to be for all time, but to reflect the needs of people who exist now. Right now there are thousands in DC who aren’t represented and this would fix that.

And then sure, if in the future there end up a lot more who need representation, that would require a fix too…possibly by expanding the DC state but we’d have to see what the future people are in favor of. Why is that a problem?

[Tribune]

I have got the solution:

DC, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the rest without senate representation should vote in the South Dakota senate race.

[moortaktheundea]

@WhyBother

Madison in Federalist 43

If we’re going to pull out Federalist 43 as binding it is worth noting that the new statehood proposal better fits the thing Madison called for than the current arrangement by allowing for congressional representation “as they will have had their voice in the election of the government which is to exercise authority over them”. Restricting the purely federal territory to governmental buildings does that better than restricting people from voting for congresscritters.

@WhyBother

If the district were itself a member of the sate, then it becomes a jurisdictional nightmare, and there is no reason to believe the Feds would actually have any power there (

Historically the district had an 11 year period from the passage of the residence act in 1790 to 1801 with the organic act where that wasn’t the case. We know how it would work because we did it for a decade.

@WhyBother

And this is to say nothing of the fact that it’s a blatant grab for an easy 3 electors in the electoral college.

Your talking points are a few decades and a constitution amendment out of date. The twenty-third amendment already grants that.

@WhyBother

hen the the surest fix to disenfranchisement is STILL not to make D.C. a state, it is to return the land and the people to the state of Maryland, who donated it in the first place.

EDIT: wait… horrifying side thought: if the land which was removed from Maryland under the constitution for purposes of creating a federal district is no longer used as that district, does Maryland then have a constitutional claim to demand the land’s return? Would we need a constitutional amendment just to un-fuck the situation?

Nope, we already showed how that works with the retrocession of Alexandria. In order for the land to be returned to the state the federal government had to both offer and the state accept. Maryland cession wouldn’t revert like Connecticut’s cession didn’t revert when uses changed in the Northwest Territiories and western Reserve.

@WhyBother

Trying to carve some new slightly smaller Federal zone

We did it once and even though it was done for worse reason, it has worked out really well.

[Aleqi]

So just for fun let’s all pretend that DC becomes state 51 starting on January next year.

The question is does the flag change? If so how? Why. I have a notion this question may lay at the root of why allowing any of our shall we say Colonial Lands face a glass ceiling to statehood. If Hawaii and Rhode Island can be states for crying out loud why not where US Citizens and US Nationals live?

Really MY question has to do with Art. If the flag changed where does the new star belong on the flag? A big star? A small star? Some Gold edging? Do stars remain in a grid in the top left quadrant?

Shoot this is as much a math question as anything. Can one design a flag with room for change in statehood when 50 stars for 50 states has been the norm for so long.

[alahmnat]

@Aleqi

50 stars for 50 states has been the norm for so long.

My mom is older than Hawaii statehood…

As for the design itself, there’s this from the other thread about DC statehood that’s currently running:

Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) against D.C. becoming a state because it's "without a car dealership"

Heck we could add at least another 20 states without making too big a fuss about where to put the stars. [flags]

[anon67050589]

@WhyBother

So with that out of the way, the question is really, "did the founders give any explicit reason why D.C. couldn’t be a state? And the answer is a resounding, “yes!” That was the stated reason for creating D.C. in the first place (see Madison in Federalist 43): to have a seat of government between the states that was not controlled by a state. Because Federalism.

Which is why the proposal separates the federal buildings in the central core from the residential/retail city that has grown up around it but still technically within the original borders.

Federal buildings don’t need states’ rights, but taxed citizens living in their own homes do.

[anon61221983]

@RigelT

I don’t think MD wants another Baltimore.

Um… wut?

Also, how about people here stop acting as if 700,000 are merely objects that we can move around at will, as opposed to subjects who deserve a political voice?

@RigelT

but I haven’t yet seen it addressed directly

Yes. it has been. The plan is to make the section of the city where the business of government happens into DC, which remains as is, while making the rest of the city it’s own state.

[moortaktheundea]

@Aleqi

The question is does the flag change? I

It doesn’t change automatically because statehood isn’t intrinsically linked to the flag, but probably rather quickly. We didn’t update the flag between the admission of the Dakotas and Idaho for example. Given that Puerto Rico is also a hot topic right now I could see them holding off for a year or two to be certain of how many stars to add or if we want a new design. An obvious frontrunner for a 51 star layout is the flag that mayor Bowser put out in large numbers a few years ago. It is just a minor shift and goes to six rows of alternating 9 and 8 star rows. https://dcist.com/story/19/09/16/heres-why-a-bunch-of-51-star-american-flags-are-lining-pennsylvania-avenue/

[anon61221983]

Seriously? The flag is the REAL problem here? Not the 700,000 Americans living in DC without functional representation (not to mention the folks in other US territories)? REALLY?

[alahmnat]

So because I’m a little bored, I went ahead and did the math. Even if you ignore the original 13 colonies, the US has added a state, on average, once every 6 years or so. This is actually the longest we’ve gone without adding a state to the Union. If anything, historically speaking the flag being static for this amount of time is more of an aberration than it changing.

Imagine the money to be made on new mass-produced 51-state flags, too!

[RigelT]

@anon61221983

@RigelT

but I haven’t yet seen it addressed directly

Yes. it has been. The plan is to make the section of the city where the business of government happens into DC, which remains as is, while making the rest of the city it’s own state.

Yes, found that out further down the thread from what you’re replying to and shared it. Learning is fun.

[anon61221983]

It’s even been part of the congressional conversation on this bill.

People acting like that’s a hold up are generally speaking just being disingenuous (in part because it’s been part of the conversation from the start).

The reality is that the GOP are against it because it gives Black Americans more political power. They are a pretty much fully white supremacist party at this point. You can pretty much bet most of their positions are underpinned by a belief in white supremacy. That is why they don’t want DC statehood. Everything else out of their mouths is a lie.