WILL THE U.S. GET A 51ST STATE? DEMS, GOP BATTLE OVER STATEHOOD FOR WASHINGTON, D.C.

Earlier this month, a group of state attorneys general, including Utah’s Sean Reyes, sent President Joe Biden and Congressional leaders a letter insisting that a bill to make Washington, D.C., the nation’s 51st state is unconstitutional.

The 22 signers, all Republicans, argued that Congress lacks the authority to create a new state by a simple majority vote.

“While Article IV, section 3 of the Constitution provides that ‘[n]ew States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union[,]’ the Constitution’s provision of exclusive authority over the District of Columbia to the United States Congress cannot be wiped away simply by ordinary legislation. Rather, the only lawful way to provide statehood to the district of Columbia is to amend the Constitution,” the attorneys general say.

In addition, they argue that Congress lacks the authority to unilaterally alter the size of the district through simple legislation, “much less create an entirely new state.”

The enactment of the Washington, D.C. Admission Act would lead to a court challenge, according to the April 13 letter.

“If this Congress passes and President Biden signs this Act into law, we will use every legal tool at our disposal to defend the United States Constitution and the rights of our States from this unlawful effort to provide statehood to the District of Columbia,” the letter says.

So far, the warning has not worked. The U.S. House on Thursday approved the legislation in a 216-208 party-line vote, with Republicans – including the four Utah representatives – casting all the nays.

House Bill 51 now goes to the Senate, where it faces a tough fight. Democrats control the Senate by the thinnest of margins – the body has 50 GOP members, 48 Democrats and two independents who caucus with the Democrats and ties are broken by Vice President Kamala Harris – and if there’s a filibuster, the bill would need 60 votes to move forward.

State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth

Statehood would give Washington, D.C., residents full representation in Congress. The district now has a non-voting “shadow delegation” of one representative and two senators, as well as a delegate in the House of Representatives. The delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, can serve on committees and propose legislation but cannot vote with the full House on the passage of bills.

Norton, H.R. 51’s sponsor and a retired Georgetown University law professor, disputes the argument that the measure is unconstitutional.

“Congress has both the moral obligation and the constitutional authority to pass H.R. 51,” Norton said before Thursday’s vote. “This country was founded on the principles of no taxation without representation and consent of the governed, but D.C. residents are taxed without representation and cannot consent to the laws under which they, as American citizens, must live.”

Under the act, most of the district would become the State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth and it still would be known as Washington, D.C. The name honors Frederick Douglass, a Black abolitionist and civil rights activist who lived in the city from 1877 until his death in 1895.

Excluded from the new 66-square-mile state would be federal buildings and monuments, including the White House, the Capitol, the U.S. Supreme Court Building, and the federal executive, legislative, and judicial office buildings located adjacent to the Mall and the Capitol. That territory would be the seat of government and known as the Capital.

The bill provides for expedited consideration of a joint resolution repealing the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution, which allows citizens living in Washington, D.C., to vote in presidential election. Under the amendment, the number of presidential electors is equal to the number of senators and representatives that the district would be entitled to have if it were a state “but in no event more than the least populous State.”

The State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, which has a population of about 712,000, would enter the union on equal footing with the other 50 states and its residents would elect two senators and a representative.

‘Partisan power grab’

Some opponents allege the statehood push is an effort to add more Democrats to Congress. In the last presidential election, 92 percent of the Washington, D.C., residents who voted cast their ballots for Biden.

Utah Solicitor General Melissa Holyoak described H.R. 51 as “a partisan power grab.”

“We join the other 20 states who believe the intent of the Founding Fathers was clear,” she said in a written statement. “The only lawful way for the District of Columbia to obtain statehood is to amend the Constitution.”

Rep. Blake Moore said the Founding Fathers intended D.C. to be free from any state’s jurisdiction to ensure fairness in how the nation’s capital is governed.

“Making D.C. a state would require a constitutional amendment to overturn the 23rd Amendment,” Moore said in an email. “This is so obviously political maneuvering by the Democrat majority in Washington to secure two more Democrat seats in the Senate. It is opposed by the majority of Americans, and I stand with my constituents in my vote against H.R. 51.”

Rep. Chris Stewart said every Department of Justice for the past 60 years has concluded that D.C. statehood is unconstitutional.

“Still, Democrats passed this legislation along party lines and ignored the 23rd Amendment because it’s politically inconvenient,” Stewart said in an email. “Today’s vote wasn’t about fair representation for D.C. residents – it was about providing D.C. with two progressive senators to enable the party’s radical agenda.”

Rep. Burgess Owens said the bill “is a misguided, partisan piece of legislation that undermines the 23rd amendment and ignores the intent of our Founding Fathers.”

Rep. John Curtis also voted no on the measure.

Utah GOP Senator Mitt Romney, also opposes the bill.

“My own view is that we should maintain the system we have and not try and pack the Senate, like the Democrats are trying to pack the Supreme Court,” Romney said in an email. “But if there were a desire to provide greater representation for the people of DC, combining DC with Maryland, from which the land was originally taken, would make more sense.”

Retrocession has been suggested as an alternative to statehood, including on Thursday, when Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., introduced a bill that would revert the majority of Washington, D.C., to Maryland. He also introduced a resolution repealing the 23rd Amendment so the district’s three electoral votes could be removed if the measure becomes law.

“The Founders never intended statehood for our nation’s capital,” Marshall said in a news release. “Instead, they intended for the capital of the newly formed United States to be a neutral site for co-equal sovereign states to conduct the nation’s business.”

Taxation without representation

The Utah Democratic Party supports H.R. 51, saying that the act is constitutional and the moral responsibility of Congress to pass.

“As per usual, Sean Reyes and his sycophantic Republican colleagues are woefully misinformed,” a written statement from the party says. “Our nation, founded on principles against taxation without representation, now disenfranchises 700,000 of its own citizens from having representation in the houses of Congress that they raise their children next door to. If we’re talking the talk, we should walk the walk — and that means supporting the will of Washingtonians demanding admission to the union.”

The Biden administration also is among statehood supporters. On Tuesday, the Office of Management and Budget released a statement of administration policy that calls for Congress to provide for “a swift and orderly transition to statehood for the people of Washington, D.C.” by approving H.R. 51, which has 216 co-sponsors.

“Establishing the State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth as the 51st state will make our Union stronger and more just. Washington, D.C. has a robust economy, a rich culture, and a diverse population of Americans from all walks of life who are entitled to full and equal participation in our democracy,” the statement says.

51 for 51, a group working for full representation, says statehood is a matter of self-determination.

“D.C. residents pay federal taxes, serve on juries and in the U.S. military, and work hard to build safe, strong communities where we live — just like other Americans. But D.C.’s lack of statehood means that the laws and budgets we pass have to be approved by Congress — where we don’t have a vote,” the group says on its website, 51for51.org.

Washington, D.C., has to perform the functions of a state in addition to those of a city government, which strains its public services such as schools and mental health services, according to 51 for 51. The group says the federal government is the largest employer in D.C. but often does not pay property, sales or income taxes.

“When large events like inaugurations and demonstrations take place, the federal government doesn’t necessarily reimburse D.C. for all of the costs associated with them,” 51 for 51 says.

Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, has said the Jan. 6 breach of the Capitol shows the need for statehood. The D.C. National Guard is under the command of the president and it was hours after the start of the riot before they were deployed. Governors have the authority to activate National Guard personnel.

“Washingtonians have waited over 200 years for the representation we deserve as American citizens,” Bowser said in a statement released on the day of the insurrection. “And it is not just the residents of DC who bear the burden of our disenfranchisement. To paraphrase Dr. King: when any American is denied democracy, our entire nation is denied those voices and votes. But now, we are ready to finally fix this injustice by getting statehood on President Biden’s desk within the first 100 days of the 117th Congress.”

“Equal right to equal representation”

Washington, D.C., shadow senator Paul Strauss, a Democrat, said the statehood effort is about self-determination and “the kind of things that would bother a resident of Utah or any other state if they had to live under this system and they didn’t have the right to pass their own laws in their own community.”

“We don’t necessarily care about which senator from which party sits here,” he said. “To us, it’s about freeing ourselves from what’s become an increasingly dysfunctional Congress. We’d like to be able to govern ourselves – the same motivating idea that the republic itself was born of.”

Strauss, who is a lawyer, contended the attorneys general do not have compelling legal arguments. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17, which is cited in their letter, gives Congress broad powers over the district and makes it the ultimate authority over the area, he said.

“We think we’re right on the letter of the law, the letter of the Constitution,” Strauss said. “We certainly engender the spirit of it, which is to give Americans equality and the equal right to equal representation.”

He said Washington, D.C., residents want statehood, not retrocession.

“We have been separate and apart from Maryland longer than most states have been in the union,” Strauss said. “There is no point in trying to put us back with Maryland. Maryland doesn’t want us back. We don’t want to go. You certainly can’t force Maryland to take us back.”

Utah has a history with Washington, D.C., involving seats in Congress.

In 2007, Senators Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., introduced a bill to grant D.C. a seat and Utah an additional seat in the House. Roll Call reported that the bill was a compromise measure giving Democratic-leaning D.C. a full seat while also granting one to Republican Utah, which just missed getting an additional representative following the 2000 Census.

The bill, which would have increased the number of representatives to 437, and other similar measures ultimately failed. Utah got a fourth seat based on the 2010 Census.