U.S. House Democrats recently voted again to give statehood to the District of Columbia so its residents can vote for members of Congress and the U.S. Senate. D.C. residents already vote for the president with three electoral votes.

D.C. is only 69 square miles, much smaller than any current state. Its population is more than 700,000, which is greater than Wyoming and Vermont, but both of those states have plenty of space to grow population and could easily surpass D.C. in the future.

A simpler way to give D.C. residents their voting rights would be to add Washington’s population to Maryland’s when appropriating House seats so that state’s congressional delegation would include representatives for D.C. Similarly, D.C. residents also would be allowed to vote for Maryland’s U.S. senators. The area of D.C. was originally ceded by Maryland.

The reason for creating an independent federal district was to keep the national government free from state jurisdiction. Giving statehood to D.C. would defeat that purpose. If a federal district is no longer important, then why not just give D.C. back to Maryland so it can operate as a county within that state while preserving its historic name of the District of Columbia?

D.C. statehood is a bad idea because it’s really a Democratic power grab to create two more Democratic seats in the Senate in perpetuity.

Voting rights can be granted to D.C. residents without statehood.

Dave Majernik

Plum

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