No to DC Statehood is far from GOP being reflexive

There are numerous principled reasons to oppose D.C. statehood. But, really, no arguments are more applicable than the ones offered by the founders, who created a federal district for the distinct purpose of denying it statehood.

First, because they were concerned about the seat of federal power being controlled by a hostile or intrusive state government. Second, because they knew that if the capital were in a state — much less its own state — the people would vote to grow and accumulate federal power. Both situations were incompatible with the proper separation of powers and state rights.

Today, though, Democrats want to localize one of the only things in the Constitution that is actually federalized — while federalizing everything else.

People like to argue that the founders never anticipated that millions of Americans would be living and working in the District. Indeed, the more powerful the permanent political class in D.C. becomes, the more reason we have to deny it statehood. Washington would likely be nothing but a swampy backwater village if it hadn't been created for, again, the purpose of not being a state.

And it doesn't matter if there are 20 or 20 million people residing in its 10-square-mile boundary. We already have Maryland and, increasingly, Virginia doing D.C.'s bidding. Washingtonians already have far too much power over ordinary Americans. And the town's great wealth is produced by taxing citizens and creating federal laws that centralize power. Why would we want to give the federal government more power?

The Washington Post's Aaron Blake says we've been dumbing down the D.C. statehood debate — and I agree, but for very different reasons. He argues that "emerging arguments against D.C. statehood" are no longer principled but partisan. "The idea isn't so much that D.C. doesn't necessarily deserve voting rights in the House and Senate, as much as that it would be a boon to Democrats," he writes.

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Normally, I would be quite sympathetic to this type of grievance. The problem is that the argument over D.C. is, both in the abstract and practical, a partisan one. After all, the only reason Democrats want to turn D.C. into a city-state is because it guarantees them two seats in the Senate, a fact that is completely reasonable to point out.

If Democrats were genuinely concerned about the imaginary voting rights of D.C. citizens, then they would talk about redrawing the borders of Washington as a one- or two-square-mile district and giving the rest of the people to Maryland and Virginia (this idea also has complications, but at least it would show that advocates for D.C. voting rights would be arguing from a "principled" position).

Yet, even setting contemporary debates aside, one of James Madison's arguments for creating a federal district was his fear of the partisan nature of states. In Federalist No. 43, he warned that without federal control of the capital, "the public authority might be insulted and its proceedings interrupted with impunity ..." by some opposing party. That is an argument about partisanship as well.

The debate, as I see it, is being dumbed down by the usual destructive majoritarian arguments, which are either propelled by a lack of civic education or an antagonism toward the Constitution. When, for instance, South Dakota Senator Mike Rounds correctly noted on Twitter that the "Founding Fathers never intended for Washington D.C. to be a state," he was dunked on a number of media believing that the founders had ever envisioned South Dakota becoming a state.

Indeed, the Founding Fathers absolutely foresaw, places such as South Dakota becoming states. That's why they laid out a clear path for statehood. This wasn't some theoretical proposition, either. Vermont was added to the Union only three years after the ratification of the Constitution. There were 17 states by the time Madison was elected president.

It is true, of course, that Madison was unaware that more than a century after the ratification of a new constitution, there would be a state christened, "South Dakota," but surely — surely - no thinking person actually believes this is a clever point to make. On the other hand, the founders also unambiguously intended — evident in both their writing and in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution — to create a special federal district for the purpose of not being a state.

And if D.C. residents don't like it, they can always move to the other side of the border.

(COMMENT, BELOW)

Previously:
• 03/22/21: Biden Prepares to Strip College Students of Due Process Rights The Hypocrisy of the Filibuster Busters
• 03/12/21: Biden Prepares to Strip College Students of Due Process Rights
• 03/05/21: AOC's Terrible Minimum Wage Argument
• 02/12/21: The Dem Party Is Radicalizing against the Constitution
• 02/05/21: What NOT to Do with Marjorie Taylor Greene
• 01/15/21: Free Speech Is a Value Not Just a Right
• 12/31/20: It Can't Get Any Worse Than 2020. Here's a 2021 Political Wish List
• 10/26/20: Wanted: An Honest Debate about the Death Penalty
• 10/26/20: These are the questions 'Big Guy' Biden must be forced to answer about Hunter's emails
• 09/11/20: The Dems' Dangerous Delegitimization of the Election
• 08/28/20: Biden Is Underperforming Hillary in Battleground States
• 08/14/20: Kamala Harris, Imaginary Centrist
• 07/24/20: Who you calling a fascist?
• 07/17/20: Speech Police have finally gone too far
• 07/03/20: 'But Gorsuch' Is Still Trump's Best Argument
• 06/22/20: Welcome to America's Cultural Revolution
• 06/12/20: The color of my skin is not an indictment of my morality, nor does it strip me of my agency
• 06/05/20: What this son of immigrants knows about bulding bussinesses --- and the dismay of destruction
• 05/28/20: The Folly of Twitter's Fact-Check
• 05/22/20: Dems Warning Trump Will Reject Election Results Should Look in the Mirror
• 05/15/20: Obamagate Is NOT a Conspiracy Theory
• 05/08/20: Really, Joe --- due process is the opposite of justice?