The Fight for D.C. Statehood

Michelle Kinsey Bruns

The New Columbia Statehood Commission met for the first time this year Thursday, April 21st. The Commission, comprised of D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, shadow senators Paul Strauss and Michael D. Brown, and shadow representative Franklin Garcia, laid out a comprehensive plan for achieving statehood, beginning with including an advisory referendum on the November presidential election’s ballot.

The plan detailed the need for a citizen drafted state constitution, allocation for funding of the commission and its various committees, and a timeline for the advisory referendum.

Even though a constitution was drafted in 1982, the Commission believes that much has changed with the city in terms of demographics and population size.

“I don’t think there’s any harm in polishing off the work that was done in 1982,” said Mendelson.

Along with the drafting of a new constitution, the Commission will also establish multiple committees that will attack the act of establishing the District as the 51st state from multiple different angles. Some of these committees include the all eight Wards committee, which will be responsible for working with the Advisory Neighborhood Commission in getting information out to the public about the progress towards statehood, the Advocacy committee, which responsible for working with civil rights and voting rights groups to advocate for statehood, and the Communications committee which will use both traditional methods and new technology to convey D.C. statehood initiative inside city and across nation. According to Senator Brown, “71% of voters in the District of Columbia are for D.C. statehood.” The Commission is trying to spread the word to the nation and get as many people as possible involved in the effort.

In order to do that the commission submitted an, in the words of the members of the commission, “aggressive” timeline for submitting a proposal to include a referendum on November’s ballot. There will be a public hearing on the language of the proposition in late July.


Region |Washington DC

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