Democrats want to give D.C. three seats at the table

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: the push to make Washington, D.C., the city, into a state all its own.

The U.S. House passed a bill last week that would convert the federal district carved out of Maryland in 1801 into the nation’s 51st state. That would come with some significant benefits: one seat in the House and two in the Senate. And because the city’s local elected officials are progressive Democrats, it stands to reason those new seats in Congress would be reliably Democrat seats.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: That’s just one reason Republicans oppose the move. Unless Senate Democrats vote to end the filibuster, the bill doesn’t stand a chance of passing through the upper chamber. But even if it did, legal analysts say it probably wouldn’t survive a court challenge.

Joining us now to explain why is Zack Smith. He’s a legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Good morning, Zack!

ZACK SMITH, GUEST: Good morning. Thank you so much for having me on.

REICHARD: Glad to have you here. Well, Democrats want to make the District of Columbia a state with simple legislation. You and several others say they can’t do that. Why?

SMITH: Well, that's exactly right. They can't do it because a constitutional amendment would be required to so radically transform the size and status of the District of Columbia. And historically, this hasn't been a partisan issue or a controversial issue, even really, because both Republican and Democratic Justice Departments that have looked at this issue have both reached exactly that same conclusion: that a constitutional amendment is required for the District of Columbia to become a state.

REICHARD: And what would need to happen to make D.C. its own state legally?

SMITH: Well, I believe you need to pass a constitutional amendment following the Article Five amendment process laid out in the Constitution. So not only would you need to pass a constitutional amendment to repeal the 23rd Amendment, which gives electors for president and vice president to the district and its residents, but you would need this constitutional amendment to also create this new state that HR51 purports to create.

REICHARD: Well, Democrats claim that D.C. residents are powerless because they don’t have their own representative in Congress. You make the case that they actually have quite a bit of power. Why do you say that?

SMITH: Well, that's not just my view. That's the view of the founding fathers. The founding fathers thought that the district's residents would have sufficient representation by Congress as a whole because of their location and ability to access all the members of Congress—their ability to access many high ranking Executive Branch officials. And certainly, you know, delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, the district's non-voting representative in the House has been very effective. She's brought the DC statehood bill to the floor of the House two times in the past two years and gotten it passed, despite it being unpopular outside of the district itself. And so more importantly, again, if you think the district is not adequately represented, the appropriate way to change that is not through simple legislation as is being done here but rather through a constitutional amendment.

REICHARD: Well, you mention the Founders in your answer there. They were concerned about fairness, weren’t they, to the rest of the country and to the people living in the District. Can you explain why our nation’s capital is set up the way it is?

SMITH: Sure. So the framers really envisioned—there were two reasons why they wanted the capital to be a separate federal entity. They wanted the federal government to have physical control over the capital. And this stemmed largely from an event that happened in 1783, when Congress was in Philadelphia and a group of disgruntled soldiers surrounded them, threatened them, and the members of Congress asked the Pennsylvania governor to send out the militia to help them and he wouldn't do it. So Congress wanted to be sure they would never be in that situation again, dependent on state or local authorities for their own safety. And then they also wanted to make sure that no one state would exercise an outsized influence on the operations of the federal government. And the way they chose to avoid that, in part, was by setting up this independent federal entity to serve as our nation's capital.

REICHARD: Zack, is there anything else about this debate you think people ought to know?

SMITH: Well, I think it's being pushed right now for partisan political gain. Fortunately, it does face an uphill battle in the Senate. There are still four Democratic senators—three Democrats, one independent—who have not signed on to co sponsor this bill yet. Hopefully, that will remain the case. And even if this were to pass the Senate and President Biden were to sign it into law, you know, I think we're facing a potentially years of litigation stemming from it—a lot of uncertainty. And so, you know, I think the more prudent course would be, if you think the district should become a state, once again, to do it by constitutional amendment and to work out many of these remaining issues before it were to become a state.

REICHARD: Zack Smith is a legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Thanks so much for joining us today. Really useful.

SMITH: Of course, thank you so much for having me on.

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