Carte Blanche: Why Do Democrats Care About DC Statehood?
pawel.gaul
In April, the Biden Administration issued an official statement in support of D.C. Statehood, saying:
“For far too long, the more than 700,000 people of Washington, D.C. have been deprived of full representation in the U.S. Congress. This taxation without representation and denial of self-governance is an affront to the democratic values on which our Nation was founded.”
While I am often critical of Biden’s approach to policy, I was pleasantly surprised by this. Statehood was a major part of my platform when I ran for DC’s Delegate to Congress in 2020, and this was the strongest support the White House has given the issue in modern history.
That being said, I have questions concerning Biden’s sincerity in saying DC should be an autonomous government when, less than two months later, he had an easy opportunity to give the District the right to govern itself concerning cannabis, and he refused. In his proposed $6 trillion budget, he kept in a provision that blocks the city from legalizing the sale of marijuana. This clause, known as the Harris Rider, was inserted into a 2014 DC appropriations bill by Representative Andy Harris (R-MD) as a reaction to DC residents overwhelmingly voting to legalize cannabis earlier that year. As a result, District residents can possess, but not sell or purchase marijuana.
The result has been a grey market in which businesses have operated off-the-books, often using loopholes such as collecting “donations” and “gifting” marijuana products. While the authorities have generally been tolerant of these questionably legal operations, some entrepreneurs haven’t been so fortunate. Customers also can’t be guaranteed product safety in this grey market, particularly concerning given the rise in deaths from fake vaping products. Overall, it’s the Wild Wild West compared to legal cannabis states that have dispensaries that look like Apple stores.
While Biden hasn’t come out in favor of federal legalization of cannabis, he “supports leaving decisions regarding legalization for recreational use up to the states,” according to White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki. If that is true, and if he thinks DC should be a state, then why would he voluntarily include the aforementioned rider that imposes the Federal government’s will over that of DC’s residents?
Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), DC’s non-voting Delegate to Congress since 1990 and my former opponent, expressed her confusion as well:
“I am having a hard time reconciling the administration’s strong support for D.C. statehood, which would give D.C. not only voting representation in Congress but also full local self-government, with a budget that prohibits D.C. from spending its local funds on recreational marijuana commercialization. With Democrats controlling the White House, House and Senate, we have the best opportunity in over a decade to enact a D.C. appropriations bill that does not contain any anti-home-rule riders.”
Norton’s frustration is more than understandable – she has been fighting for statehood her whole career with nothing to show, and it seemed that she had more support than ever when Democrats took control this year. However, I’m sure she realizes that Biden and the Democrat establishment don’t care as much about the voting rights or legislative autonomy for the District as they do about political control – DC becoming a state would give Democrats two more seats in the Senate and at least another in the House. Autonomy from federal oversight has never been a priority for Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, or Joe Biden. So, when an actual chance appears to release the city from the shackles of the federal government regarding cannabis policy, they refused to act.
Later this month, Norton will make her pitch to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs on why her statehood bill, which passed the House, should go to vote on the Senate floor. If the committee approves, it would be the first time the Senate has voted on the issue. Even so, the vote would primarily be for theatre as it will be dead-on-arrival unless they either end the filibuster or convince nine Republicans and Joe Manchin (D-WV) to vote in favor - both extremely unlikely scenarios. Politicians rarely pass up an opportunity for theatre, so I’m betting we’ll see a vote to make Republicans look bad, which they may deserve on this issue.
Norton first got statehood to the House floor for a vote in 1993 – all but one Republican and 40% of Democrats voted against it. This was a win in her eyes, saying, “I’m ready to declare victory right now… This vote has surpassed my greatest expectations.” Civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, who was brought in to lobby Congress before that vote, wasn’t as satisfied:
“The House leadership was talking this down, saying it was a symbolic vote, not a substantive one. No deals were cut here."
It wasn’t until 2019 that Democrat leadership allowed statehood to be brought to the floor again. After being publicly critical throughout three decades of inaction, Norton expressed, “All of that is over today, my friends… This has been the bad House, this has become the good House.” If a “good House” means one that strategically presents dead-on-arrival bills to make the other side look bad, then I agree. But I have trouble believing that the whole party suddenly became concerned with DC’s representation considering it had full control just a decade ago and didn’t act. Norton concisely summed up Barak Obama’s commitment to the issue during his presidency: “He has endorsed it. He seldom speaks of it.”
One major aspect of this situation that is often overlooked is the taxation part of “taxation without representation”. DC pays more federal income tax per capita than any state despite its lack of representation or autonomy. It is essentially treated as a territory like Puerto Rico or Guam, yet territories don’t pay federal taxes. In 2001, Norton tried this avenue by introducing a bill to exempt DC from Federal income taxes. She asserted then:
“We put the same demand to the Congress that the founders of our nation put to King George: ‘Give us our vote, or give us our taxes… Confronted with the alternative: D.C.’s $2 billion in federal income taxes or voting representation for its citizens, we believe that Congress will ultimately choose the vote over the money.”
The bill died in the House, and Norton dropped the effort from her legislative agenda in 2002. She claims that DC residents aren’t concerned about these arguably unconstitutional taxes, although I heard differently when I ran against her with a proposition to eliminate the federal income tax in DC. While I favor slashing taxes, the main motivation of my proposition was to put pressure on Congress to choose between tax revenue or DC statehood. That’s exactly what Norton was saying in 2001, just as our founders did when being taxed by Parliament without representation.
It is hard to see a world in which modern-day Democrats would support eliminating around $27 billion per year in tax revenue, and I’m guessing Norton wouldn’t have been as successful in getting statehood through the House if she still talked about taxation. But it would be much easier to convince Republican senators to vote for eliminating taxes than to add DC as a state, so it should be pursued when the current statehood push fails. If Democrats were concerned about the rights of DC citizens (Republicans don’t even pretend to), then they’d be willing to compromise with a proposal like this. If not, Norton might want some Libertarians to get elected so she can build a bi-partisan coalition.
