On Tuesday, the House of Representatives will vote on H.R. 51, which was voted out of committee earlier this week. The bill seeks to rename the current territory “Washington, Douglass Commonwealth,” while designating a tiny sliver of current D.C. territory, consisting of the White House, the U.S. Capitol, and select government buildings, as a new federal capital district.
House moving to put D.C. statehood bill on the floor NEXT WEEK pic.twitter.com/F8rhGuaeeW
— Mike DeBonis (@mikedebonis) April 16, 2021
“The Democrats are so greedy to permanently tilt the political balance of power in their favor that they have presented us with a laughable D.C. statehood proposal,” said Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) in a statement. “For one thing, it is a terrible idea to create a tiny new ‘capital district’ no larger than a city park that would be completely surrounded by an entirely new state. What if the government of ‘Washington, Douglass Commonwealth’ doesn’t want to ensure the security of the new capital district? Or to help supply its electricity or plumbing? How could a territory no larger than a few city blocks avoid being coerced into submission?”
But the bigger issue with the legislation is that it’s blatantly unconstitutional. “The Democrats would like to pretend that the 23rd Amendment, which grants residents of the capital at least 3 electoral votes in presidential elections, does not exist,” Biggs continued. “But unfortunately it does, and this reality can’t simply be willed away. Or maybe the Democrats want the few actual residents of the new capital district—essentially just President Biden and his immediate family in the White House—to have as much voting power as the residents of some entire U.S. states: a completely ludicrous proposition.”
“If the Democrats, in disregard of our Founders and the will of the majority of Americans, still want to make D.C. a state, they need to start drafting a constitutional amendment,” said Biggs.
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