States in the U.S. have the practice of emblazoning their vehicle license plates with their mottos. New York plates have ‘Empire State’ on them, California’s have ‘Golden State’ on them and New Jersey’s, ‘Garden State’. And then there is the rather incongruous ‘Taxation without Representation’ license plate from Washington DC. The motto, an adaptation of “no taxation without representation”, the American settlers’ rallying cry against being taxed without representation in the British Parliament, has come to represent DC’s battle for Statehood and the representation in the U.S. Congress that goes with it.
DC’s status goes back to the founding of the U.S., when James Madison, one of the writers of the U.S. Constitution, wrote in his ‘The Federalist No. 43’ essay that a federal district was required where the federal government would have sovereignty, without which “public authority might be insulted and its proceedings be interrupted, with impunity”. Madison’s fear came to pass, Lee Casey of the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation writes, when soldiers besieged the Congress as it met in Philadelphia some six months after his writings were published. Consequently, the U.S. Constitution made room for a federal district with the words, “The Congress shall have Power To... exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District.” The District was established with land from Maryland and Virginia in 1790. Today, the some 7,00,000 people living in Washington DC are subject to taxes, yet DC’s one delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives has no voting power.
Congressional oversight
Congress also has oversight of local DC laws and has to approve its budget, which, under the Home Rule Act of 1973, is prepared by the local DC government, led by a Mayor and her Council. The power of oversight has caused clashes in the past when Congress has gone against local government decisions, for instance, by blocking funding for abortion clinics or needle exchange programmes to fight HIV. In 2016, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser organised a referendum on the question of Statehood. Although over 80% voted in favour of the proposal, it was not legally binding and the results were limited to asking the District’s Council to petition Congress for statehood.
The current stage of the Statehood quest has culminated in H.R. 51, a Bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that seeks to create a State from what is at present a federal district, but the new State would not have jurisdiction over the Capitol, federal monuments and so forth. The Bill, introduced last month by DC’s non-voting member in the House, Eleanor Holmes Norton, had a record 155 original co-sponsors, according to a statement on Ms. Holmes Norton’s website.
“We must protect the rights of everyone across the country, including the hundreds of thousands of American citizens who live in our nation’s capital... I plan to schedule a hearing and markup [of H.R. 51] this year,” Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform Elijah Cummings reportedly said. The Bill, even if it passes the House (a Democrat-controlled House in 1993 defeated a similar Bill), is unlikely to get past the Republican-controlled Senate because if DC achieves Statehood, it would most likely mean two more Senate seats for Democrats.
In the meantime, Ms. Holmes Norton has said that she will pursue greater powers for DC via a parallel track — expanding Home Rule by introducing Bills as part of a “Free and Equal DC” series. These Bills are, for reasons mentioned above, unlikely to get very far, and DC is unlikely to get Statehood anytime soon.
(Sriram Lakshman works for The Hindu and is based in Washington DC)
