Today, Explained - The 51st state?

Episode Date: September 19, 2019

Residents in the District of Columbia have been living with "taxation without representation" from Day 1. Today, they take their call for statehood to Congress. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි අපි something's different in washington dc today but you kind of have to squint to notice all along pennsylvania avenue around the capitol building the city has hung u.S. flags on lampposts. And this is the thing you'd never notice. Instead of 50 stars, the flags have 51. And that 51st star is for the District of Columbia. 51! 51! 51! 51! 51! 51! We're here today to say the time for statehood for Washington, D.C. is now. We want everybody across these United States of America to know that we are just like them. We pay taxes just like they do. We send our people to war just like they do. More than 200,000 Washingtonians have paid the ultimate sacrifice fighting for democracy around the world and they demand statehood now.

Statehood now! Statehood now! Statehood now! Statehood now! Statehood now! You know, we got no representation and we pay all this money for taxation. It's kind of ridiculous that that was the whole point of this country, and we don't get it. Statehood now! Statehood now!

It does make sense that the district should be represented by a voting member of Congress. The House of Representatives passed such legislation just recently. The problem is that it's patently unconstitutional. Say it good now! Say it good now! At this time, tyranny still exists until that 51st star goes up there. Our desire for democracy just doesn't override our common agreement to abide by the rule of the Constitution. If the vote means that much to you,

you're going to have to move to a real state. What do we want? Statehood! What do we want? Now! Today, the House of Representatives has its first hearing on D.C. statehood in almost 30 years. Representatives will be talking about House Bill 51. Get it? It would provide for the admission of the state of Washington, D.C. into the union. But before we get there, we have to establish why

Washington, D.C. isn't another state in the union, why it's just a district, a federal district. I asked Derek Musgrove. He's one of the authors of Chocolate City, a history of any state really has its origins in a protest by Pennsylvania Revolutionary War soldiers, decommissioned at this point, in 1783. They hadn't been paid. They headed to the state house to protest to the governor that they should be paid. And along the way, they actually passed Congress. Some of the folks that were in the building essentially call Congress into session. They don't have a quorum. They say that these soldiers had mutinied and had menaced them. And the soldiers did menace them a little bit. They sort of made fun of them.

You know, they shouted epithets in the windows at them. What they draw from that sort of made-up crisis is that they should not be beholden to a state governor or state legislature for their own protection and for managing the place where they meet, the federal town or the federal district. And so roughly starting about 1783, they come up with the idea that there should be a federal district set off from the states that is completely and totally under the purview of Congress. And that's the sort of the germ of the idea that leads to eventually Washington, D.C. But this is going to be a place where people live, where there's commerce, where there's interstate travel and all sorts of needs. Who's going to figure all that stuff out?

Is Congress going to govern this town? Or from the outset, is there an idea of how this will all work? There's not a clear idea. There is the expectation among all these folks that the residents of the federal town or the federal district will have access to democratic governance, but they never come up with a clear plan

for how it's going to happen. So Congress moves to town from Philadelphia and they say, well, now that we're here, we now are going to take this area, which used to be parts of Maryland and Virginia. It's essentially a 10-mile square straddling the Potomac and Anacostia rivers. And we are going to place it under the federal jurisdiction. By doing that, however, and not presenting a plan whereby the people within that federal district have representation in Congress,

they effectively strip the residents of the district of a voting Congress. Because if you're no longer in a state, well, then you have no way of voting for a member of the House or a member of the Senate. So how does this sit? People start settling this federal district where they don't have any federal representation. Folks locally are really upset. They protest that they don't have access to representation in Congress. And in fact, those people who live in downtown D.C., which at the time was seen as a separate town called Washington City, they don't even have local government. They can't vote for dog catcher after 1801. And so they protest. And Congress, to its credit, immediately responds and puts together legislation that gives them a local government in 1802, just a year later.

A mayor? It's a mayor, but the mayor is appointed. And it's a council that is elected only by white male landowners. Classic. And the governance in the district is slowly expanded over the course of the antebellum period. And then comes the Civil War. And so during the Civil War, you get all of these major reforms. We essentially, for the first time in American history, become a biracial democracy with the passage of the 14th Amendment. And all of a sudden, African Americans

in the city can vote. And so, you know, African Americans play a huge role in local politics for the next five years or so. And then as part of the backlash against Reconstruction, conservative whites in both political parties decide that this was a bad idea because they're worried that Congress will not give the city money if black folks have some control over how that money is spent locally through the government. And so they basically make a deal with conservatives in Congress, just strip the entire city of the franchise, take it all away. Nobody votes, not rich white people, not poor black people, nobody. And just give us a congressional payment, a big old congressional payment that allows us to run the city and we'll be happy. And in 1874, the city is stripped of the franchise altogether.

And many white D.C. residents are perfectly happy with that, particularly elite white D.C. residents. Why is that? Because they get all this money from the federal government in the form of the congressional payment. And most importantly, black folks don't vote. I mean, they really saw that as a danger to governance in the city. And some of them, in fact, didn't want poor whites to vote either. And so that was a plus for them as well. And they figured, look, we can sit down with business leaders. We can sit down with members of Congress, smoke a few cigars, drink a little bourbon, and we can run the city just through these great personal relationships that we have. That's the best way to run the city. But if you start bringing in the rabble,

the African Americans who are laying pavement out there on Pennsylvania Avenue, or the Irish mechanics who are doing work down by the canal in Georgetown, if you bring them into the conversation, they'll ruin American democracy, specifically D.C. local democracy. This way we can keep them out. Now those outgroups, those groups that were seen as a threat by these elites, began demanding some type of vote pretty early on, starting in the late 19th century. Labor leaders, African-Americans begin asking for home rule. They wanted a local government. And they're consistently pushed back all the way through the late 19th century, the early 20th century. And they can't get the whole pot. They can't get a city council and a

mayor. And so what advocates of returning democracy to the district do is they essentially piecemeal it. And so the first major success in the effort to gain some voting back in the district is in 1960, when a primarily white group of lobbyists pushed for the 23rd Amendment, which would give D.C. residents the vote in presidential elections. And that is passed very quickly, within a year. The first presidential election that we vote in presidential elections. And that is passed very quickly, within a year. The first presidential election that we vote in is 1964. I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy.

I urge every member of both parties, Americans of all religions and of all colors, from every section of this country, to join me in that cause. After that, 1971, you get the non-voting delegate election, and then the big one comes in 1974 with the home rule election where we get a city council and a mayor. And so 100 years after the end of Reconstruction, not only do we have a mayor and a D.C. council that are elected by their citizens, but the citizenry is roughly at this point 70 percent black. And the people who sit on that council and who go into the mayor's office are almost to a man and woman, civil rights, black power, and anti-poverty activists. And so not only does D.C. get democracy, but really it gets representatives of all of the major social movements of the 1960s in government. So after D.C. gets local representation, the question shifts to federal representation.

How does D.C. do it? There's literally three ways to do it. First is you retrocede to Maryland. Another option is to alter the Constitution to get D.C. treated as though it were a state in Congress for the matters of representation. Right. So D.C. has electoral votes from the 23rd Amendment back in the 1960s. But this is saying, let's get D.C. voting members in the House and the Senate. What's number three? Third one was statehood. Third one is just straight statehood.

Straight statehood. And that's obviously the biggest ask. And it's also the ask right now in House Bill 51. How's it initially received back then? Statehood had never been a particularly well-regarded strategy in the district up until the 1970s. People were just focused on trying to get home rule or just trying to get representation in Congress. I mean, they never thought that big. And then in 1969, a bunch of black power activists, Chuck Stone, who was editor of the Afro newspaper, Jesse Anderson, who's a local Episcopal priest, and Julius Hobson, famous local black power activist, held a news conference, formed the D.C. Statehood Committee, and said, look, we are going to make sure we get statehood by any means necessary, paraphrasing Malcolm X. And this is in 1969.

And their announcement really went nowhere. We profess the favor of freedom in here, and we will not depreciate agitation. So statehood party, let's go and let's keep it together. The idea sort of percolates out there largely through their activism through the 1970s. But then Julius Hobson dies of cancer in 1977, and the statehood party begins to fall apart. And so here you have a situation where statehood kind of follows this very specific trail, which is that people come up with the idea, it resonates just a little bit, but it never gets a critical mass, and then it begins to recede. What's the closest D.C.'s ever been to statehood?

To statehood? You could argue now. DC Vote, which is under the able stewardship of Bo Schuff, who's a very talented political operator. Representation is fundamental to democracy. It's fundamental to how we were founded. We were founded to end taxation without representation. And he and his team at DC Vote have been able to gain well over 200 co-sponsors for a statehood bill in the House of Representatives. The Oversight Committee today will hold its first House hearing in more than a quarter century on legislation to make the District of Columbia America's 51st state. What's standing in the way?

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say Republicans? Republicans have, since 1980, every single four years, stated unequivocally in their party platform that they oppose representation in Congress, however it may be achieved, for the residents of the District of Columbia. In fact, in a lot of those party platforms, particularly in the 1990s, they actually cheerleaded for a rollback of home rule. And John Kasich sort of laid out why that would be in 2016 when he sat down for an interview with the Washington Post. He just said, look, it's a non-starter. That's just two more votes in the Senate for the Democratic Party.

It's not going to happen. The Post sort of pushed back and said, there's it's a non-starter. That's just two more votes in the Senate for the Democratic Party. It's not going to happen. You know, the Post sort of pushed back and said, there's 700,000 people who live there who are American citizens. And he's like, yeah, it's not going to happen. And so, you know, could you accuse one party of partisanship? Yes. And you could accuse the other party of partisanship. I think that what D.C. residents have to figure out in the midst of all this is how they get forward the idea that these are 700,000 American citizens who should have the right to have representation in their national legislature. They just absolutely should. You know, D.C. does have a representative in Congress.

She just doesn't get to vote on bills. Her name's Eleanor Holmes Norton, and I'll speak with her after this message. Mom. Yes, Sean. You know where we are right now? Yes, Los Angeles, California. True, but we're also in the middle of the episode. 400th episode of Today Explained. You're stealing my thunder.

You're too up on Twitter. Yes, today is our 400th episode. On the occasion of your 400th podcast episode, you're allowed to ask listeners for a big, huge favor. So I'm going to ask you, because you're a listener and you're standing right here. Could you, mom, on the occasion of our 400th episode, make sure you tell all your friends about this great podcast that you love called today explained i will i will ask them to download today explained on stitcher spotify and apple great and you can ask them to subscribe to ask them to subscribe you already do this don't you i have already done so many of my friends are listening to you

when you go to tell people to listen where do you do it uh when i meet people i tell them on twitter and facebook instagram nice telephone telephone what about irl irl too do you know about irl you don't know you can't whisper they can't hear you no i don't know irl is in real life mom in real life wow i thought i learned something today great to see you in real life, mom. In real life. Wow. I learned something today. Great to see you in real life. Thanks, mom. You're welcome. Bye. Bye. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, how long have you been fighting for D.C. statehood? I must say, probably since I was a child. No, I'm a native Washingtonian, but I've been fighting for D.C. statehood ever since I entered the Congress almost 30 years ago. And I actually got a hearing on D.C. statehood then, but we are a lot closer to getting D.C. statehood now.

What else is in the bill? What will D.C. get once it gets this first round of statehood? Well, the most important things it gets are two senators and a full voting house members. Actually, we get the same per capita in federal funds right now. And in many ways, I have the very same rights that every other member of Congress has. But the people I represent don't, because they don't have a final vote on legislation in the House of Representatives, and they have nobody to vote for them in the Senate of the United States. I'm sure you hear the arguments against statehood every day. One of the ones you hear most often is, D.C. isn't a state, it's a city. What's your stock response to that one?

Well, the Constitution doesn't say what a state looks like. For example, we have more residents than Vermont and Wyoming. We pay, we of the District of Columbia, pay more taxes per capita than any state in the union right now. Then those who live in New York or California or Florida or you name the state you would like. That alone ought to entitle this statehood. You mentioned the Constitution. What about the argument that D.C. becoming a state would just straight up be unconstitutional, that the founders wanted the Capitol to be its own thing, not another chunk of land with federal representation, with senators and congressmembers? Well, a federal enclave would become your capital.

It means it'll be smaller, but you'll still have a capital. You mean like a little slice of the National Mall from the Capitol to the White House to the Lincoln Memorial or what? Thereabouts, yes. Okay. And then the rest of D.C. would be the 51st state. The private homes and businesses that surround the federal enclave would be Washington-Douglas Commonwealth, Washington, D.C. Yeah. As in Frederick Douglass?

As in Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass, by the way, was a great champion of equal rights for the District of Columbia. And that is very interesting when you consider that he's known most for championing the end of slavery. You know, I wonder if this House Bill HB 51 does indeed pass and, you know, it's sort of a landmark moment for this movement. It's still going to most likely meet serious resistance from the Republican-controlled Senate, from the president. Do you think it will ever actually happen? Of course it's going to happen. Today I've just come into the House, hot, sunny day. If the House were to pass a bill today saying it's hot and sunny, you couldn't get that bill

past the Senate for a little while now. So I'm not in any way worried about the Senate for two reasons. When we get this bill through the House for the first time in 218 years, we'll be more than halfway there. Secondly, what makes you think the Republicans are going to keep control of the Senate in 2020? Are you dreaming? You know, I guess one of the fears Republicans have here is that if they were ever to approve statehood for D.C., they'd just be handing over, you know, two votes in the Senate that would forever be blue, that would forever be Democratic votes. Do you think if D.C.'s population were a little more politically diverse that Republicans might be more in favor

of D.C. statehood? It is certainly true that it has been controversial for every state to get into the union. It usually took two states coming in at the same time so that people were assured that there would be some evenness. Look, we understand we're breaking the mold. We're a city trying to become a state. And a lot of parting of the waters will have to take place. We already see that beginning to happen. You know, I used to live here 10 years ago in D.C. And obviously I live here again now. And I noticed one change.

I mean, I noticed a few changes in the city between those intervening eight or nine years, including like a lot more whole foods. But one other thing I noticed was the license plates went from saying, you know, District of Columbia, taxation without representation to now they say, District of Columbia and taxation without representation. Did you have anything to do with that decision? No, the district knows what to do. That was all the district, huh? Yeah. As we got closer and closer, the district understood that we need to speak directly to the millions of tourists who come into our city. It kind of makes me laugh because now it's sort of like even if you don't want D.C. statehood, but if you live in D.C., you have to drive around if you have a car with this political statement that maybe supports a cause that you don't believe in. Do you ever meet people whom you represent in the Congress who don't want statehood, people who live here in D.C. who don't want statehood?

Have you ever met any Americans who wanted to pay taxes without representation, who wanted to have only a House member, who didn't have a final vote on the House floor, who wanted not to have two senators to go to. That person does not exist. So you think it'd be impossible to find a single resident of the District of Columbia who isn't in favor of statehood, who doesn't want statehood? If there's a resident who doesn't want statehood, she could write to me, but I have yet to hear from that resident. Interesting. And I guess because this has been an issue so close to you for 30 years now and

long before that even, but 30 years at least in the Congress. I wonder, what do you think it would mean to you and to the rest of the District of Columbia, as it's currently called, to finally achieve statehood? It would have both practical and psychological consequences, frankly. Practical consequences, we've been talking about, you and non-voting delegate, but she would love to change that. I want to welcome everyone to this historic hearing on H.R. 51, legislation that would make Washington, D.C. our nation's 51st state. I think our founders wisely gave us a federal city for the purposes of the federal government. And when that is mixed up with and intertwined with state government, it's going to get messy. And our founders had the wisdom to give us a federal city in which to do federal business.

The argument that, well, the Constitution never envisioned people voting in D.C. Yeah, they never envisioned a modern metropolis of 700,000 people. And had they, I know Madison would be the first to line up and give you the vote, not as a privilege, not because you fought for the country, but because as Americans, it's your right. I'm Sean Ramos for him. This is episode 400 of Today Explained. Thank you for listening.