The fight for America's 51st state, explained

On June 26 2020 the US House of Representatives voted to do something it had never done before it passed a bill to create the 51st state by giving the US Capitol washington DC statehood members of the House of Representatives each represent between 500,000 and a million Americans DC 700,000 residents are represented by this woman eleanor holmes norton but she couldn't vote on the statehood bill because she's different from other members she can speak on the floor and introduce bills but she can actually vote americans and territories like Puerto Rico and Guam are also represented in Congress by delegates who can't vote but Americans in these places don't pay federal taxes to the US government DC residents do in fact in DC the average person pays more in federal taxes than in any state and they're not happy about it it's why DC's license plates say taxation without representation precedent Trump has promised to block Washington DC from becoming the state so that House vote was mostly symbolic but Washington DC's residents are clear on what they want so will DC ever actually become a state and should it in the US the federal government is not supposed to be based in a state the Constitution says it should be in a neutral federal district what today is called the District of Columbia but since the founding of the country the district has grown into a major city for most of its existence as a city the district has been under the control of the United States Congress starting in the 1960s Congress made some concessions to DC's calls for representation it granted them electoral college votes for presidential elections a non-voting member in Congress and finally the right to elect their own local government but because Congress still completely controls their budget they often undermine DC's local government which is another major reason DC residents want statehood that's understating it a little in the 2016 election Trump only got a whopping 4% of the vote in DC Congress has kept DC from using their local tax dollars on things like abortion services or needle exchange programs to reduce hiv/aids they've tried to undercut DC's gun laws and same-sex marriage benefits and they stopped the city from legalizing marijuana as a prop Holmes Norton's plan would turn most of the District of Columbia into a new state called the Douglas Commonwealth there would still be a federal district around the actual government buildings but the remaining 66 square miles of neighborhoods would become the newest smallest state but it would still have a larger population than two states and would be about the same size as for others so what's the holdup well representatives from other states have lots of reasons founding fathers did not intend for Washington DC to be a state Washington DC is a city not a state there is no manufacturing there is no mining or law but it's not a coincidence that every representative speaking out against statehood here is Republicans statehood would give DC and most likely the Democratic Party one more vote in the House of Representatives and two more votes in the Senate which means the actual obstacle to statehood is politics in the decades after the US was founded new states were regularly added and without much issue until 1818 when Missouri wanted to become a new state at that time power in Congress was evenly balanced between states that allowed slavery and states that didn't Missouri which would become a slave state would tip that balance which representatives of the free states didn't want so Congress came up with a compromise Missouri would be added at the same time as Maine a free state a pair to keep the political balance after that states were mostly added in pairs Arkansas a slave state with Michigan a free state Florida a slave state with Iowa a free state Texas a slave state with Wisconsin a free state and that system has also been used to keep the balance between the political parties most recently in 1959 with the addition of Hawaii which leaned Republican at the time and Alaska which leaned Democratic right now Democrats control one house of Congress but Republicans control the other one as well as the presidency and as long as that's the case DC is unlikely to become a state on its own it would certainly be easier if there were some ready jurisdiction to be made to stay that was a Republican jurisdiction the last time the House voted on DC statehood was in 1993 when Democrats had an even bigger majority than they do today the bill still failed with more than a hundred Democrats voting No 2020 is turning out to be different rotavirus begins to take a toll on the US economy more than six million Americans filed jobless claims in March as millions lost their jobs Congress passed a coronavirus relief bill giving each state at least a billion dollars but DC which is usually treated like a state and most congressional funding was instead treated as a u.s. territory and got less than half that being treated like a territory is shocking it's infuriating in June as protests against police violence spread across the country the National Guard patrolled parts of the city that kind of occupation would be illegal in every state but not DC there shouldn't be troops from other states in Washington DC in the last several days demonstrate that our fight for statehood is also about our right to autonomy it's time for statehood to come to Washington DC we've seen in very painful and frankly violent terms what the lack of statehood can bring to the residents of the District of Columbia right now the people in charge of the federal government opposed DC statehood but it only takes one election to change that [Music] Americans in the DC fire department his father Richard Holmes was a runaway slave from Virginia he walked to freedom but he he didn't walk to equality so I figure I'm picking up where he left off he got us to freedom he got the homes family to freedom now I've got to get the homes family and all my constituents to equality [Music]

Channel: Vox

Views: 1,907,220

Keywords: dc, district of columbia, united states, US Capital, Eleanor Holmes Norton, representation, representative, delegate, douglas commonwealth, 51, 51st state, Statehood, DC statehood, house of representatives, congress, senate, muriel bowser, government, district, territories, federal income tax, Vox.com, vox, explain, explainer, why isn't DC a state, should dc be a state, how can dc become a state, capitol, washington, washington dc, why isn't dc state, 2020

Id: bfUeekXbYzk

Length: 7min 21sec (441 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 17 2020