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Nancy Solomon: I'm Nancy Solomon in for Tanzina Vega this week. In March, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform held a hearing and consideration of a bill that would make Washington D.C. a state.

Mayor Muriel Bowser: I am Muriel Bowser. I am mayor of Washington D.C. and I'm honored to come before this committee to ask this Congress to right the wrong that happened 220 years ago when the residents of the District of Columbia were stripped of their full congressional representation.

Nancy: The city's more than 700,000 residents pay more in federal taxes than 22 states but have just one non-voting member of congress and no senators. Events over the past year have brought the long-standing burden to a head when Trump supporters violently descended on the Capitol in order to disrupt Congress's final tally on the general election in January. D.C. officials couldn't call in the National Guard, and D.C. officials have had trouble lobbying the federal government for an adequate number of vaccine doses. Many of the district's residents are frustrated by their city's territory status.

Renee Davis: Renee Davis, Southeast D.C. Ward 7.

Yvette: I'm Yvette [unintelligible 00:01:21] and I'm from Washington, D.C.

James Lewis: My name is James Lewis and I've lived here 50 years.

Marlin: Williams My name is Marlin. I'm from Northern Virginia, which isn't too far from D.C.

Nancy: Our producer Patricia Yacob asked these folks if D.C. should be a state.

Renee Davis: Taxation without representation makes absolutely no sense. D.C. should have a voice. Can we have some representation? For me, that's everything. We can't even call in our own national guard if there is an emergency. We have to get permission from someone else. That makes absolutely no sense in 2021.

Yvette: We pay a lot and we put into this city and it really sucks that our vote doesn't count, or our voice doesn't matter. I think we would just gain a bigger voice because I know moving to this city 25 years ago, a lot of people here didn't vote, because a lot of people here felt that their vote doesn't count, because we have no representation, because we're not a state. I think that's disheartening. I think becoming a statehood would encourage people even more that their voice matters.

James Lewis: I think the District of Columbia should be made into a state because it gives the residents more voice, gives us a vote in Congress, and I think we can accomplish a lot more with it being a state. It's taxation without proper representation. With becoming a state, I think we would feel more empowered.

Marlin: D.C. should become a state. I think it has a population higher than several, or two other states. It also, being an independent entity would allow it state rights, such as an ability to have votes in Congress and things like that. I think being dependent on the federal government to provide services and things isn't appropriate for a place that has almost a million people living in it. On a pre-COVID, any given day would have 1.5 million people working, commuting, things like that.

Representation at a federal level, as we can see is crucial to how democracy plays out as a citizen in a country that lives in D.C., your vote doesn't necessarily matter at a federal level such as Virginia or Maryland. [unintelligible 00:03:37] to a degree violates the civil rights of those people who decide to live and make residency in D.C.

Nancy: D.C. statehood is also an issue that's galvanizing young activists in the district.

Ty Hobson Powell: I'm Ty Hobson Powell, 25 years old, and I'm a lead organizer with 51 for 51.

Nancy: 51 for 51 is a national coalition of progressive groups that advocates for D.C. statehood.

Ty: It is morally the right thing to do. We have over 710,000 residents, majority Black and brown, pay the highest federal taxes in the nation, who have all of the obligations as Americans, but none of the same rights as it pertains to being empowered and democracy. We send men and women off to serve. We have people that serve on juries. We do our part as Americans only then to be left out of the promise of the American dream.

Nancy: Ty says that the issue of D.C. statehood goes deeper than the no taxation without representation slogan.

Ty: This is also a racial equity issue. We were shorted hundreds of millions of dollars for the CARES Act, which provides relief for Coronavirus to the states, because we weren't designated as a state. Now, in our fight with COVID here in Washington, D.C., Black and brown populations have been the most disproportionately affected by the plague of COVID-19.

[unintelligible 00:04:58] look at gun violence, because people don't often equate the fight for D.C. statehood with the fight for safer streets, but it is, because D.C. on the books has some of the most progressive gun violence prevention laws in the nation, but that means nothing when we don't have a seat at the table to speak to issues like red flag laws and background checks about the guns that are coming from other states which lacks regulations that are wreaking havoc in the streets of Washington, D.C. and disproportionately affecting mainly Black and brown youth.

Nancy: Ty also believes that some of the opposition to making D.C. a state is rooted in misconceptions about who really lives in the district.

Ty: A lot of why D.C. hasn't been a state is racism, but a large part of that, I believe, is ignorance. That people have no idea about what's going on here in Washington D.C. and we saw that in our work with 51 for 51. We would travel to Iowa, to New Hampshire, to South Carolina, and really just be able to humanize the fact that there are Washingtonians that live here outside of the politicians that occupy the hill.

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Nancy: We just heard how D.C. residents are feeling about the possibility of statehood for the district, and some of the loudest voices calling for D.C. to become a state are local politicians. Janeese Lewis George represents Ward 4 on the City Council, and she joins me now. Councilmember George, welcome to The Takeaway.

Councilmember Janeese Lewis George: Thank you. Thank you for having me, Nancy.

Nancy: Before we jump into the conversation about statehood, I was so sorry to see the news Friday about the incident at the Capitol where a person drove a car into two Capitol Police officers, killing one of them and injuring the other. What kind of impact is the January 6th riot and last week's violence having on the city?

Councilmember George: First, I share our condolences to the family of officer Billy Evans on their tragic loss and I hope the other officer who was struck can make a full recovery. This was just the latest tragic example of the catastrophic impact that right-wing extremism has had on our country and on our safety. D.C. has been in dialogue with Congress over what security should look like at the US Capitol and White House, and there needs to be a balance struck there.

On one hand, it's important we take measures to prevent and protect against future attacks, but we also can't build and shut down the people's house in our Capitol building from ordinary people. D.C. is already over-policed because we have so many law enforcement agencies operating, from D.C. Police to Transit Police, to secret services, federal agents and so many more. We need to be smart about how we protect the district and not just adopt any measures for the sake of security [unintelligible 00:07:46]

Nancy: What do you see as the clearest argument in favor of making D.C. estate?

Councilmember George: The best reason for statehood is what is written on our license plates here in the district. We need to end taxation without representation. It is our birthright. There are 700,000 residents who do not have US senators to represent them and who do not have representation in Congress that gets to vote in their interests. That's just fundamentally undemocratic and unjust, and it sets a huge disadvantage compared to other states, including states like Wyoming and Vermont who have fewer residents than D.C.

We also pay more than 22 other states in federal taxes. This is absolutely a modern-day civil rights violation, and that's the clearest argument. It's not democratic, it's doesn't speak to our values as a country, and it's absolutely our birthright.

Nancy: 46% of the city's residents are Black. What has been the conversation about race so far when it comes to statehood?

Councilmember George: Absolutely. We view D.C. statehood as a racial justice issue. I think the denial of statehood for D.C. over the decades is closely connected to the reality that nearly half of all D.C. residents are Black, and historically it has been much higher than that. If admitted, D.C. would have the greatest percentage of Black Americans of any state in the union. When we look back in history, when Virginia took back it's land, that had roots in their ability to be able to continue to have practices with Black Americans here in this country.

The other piece of that we talked about is not just Black Americans in this country, but indigenous people. Another side of the D.C. statehood that many people often neglect is that D.C. is also home to Indigenous people. Native Americans that inhabited this land well before any of us. To this day, the Piscataway people live in D.C. but are denied any representation in the US government as well. When you account for the fact that our federal buildings are actually built on Piscataway land, the denials they have for those residents is even more unacceptable.

Nancy: You've also framed DC statehood as a criminal justice issue. Explain how that factors in here.

Councilmember George: Absolutely. Especially as a former assistant attorney general, D.C.'s lack of statehood impacts our city, how our city is run and D.C. has one of the highest rates of mass incarceration in the country. That's largely because the federal government controls many parts of our criminal justice system, including prosecuting D.C. residents, deciding when D.C. residents get probation, our parole system, our laws on marijuana and many more. These are unelected federal officials who aren't accountable to our communities, deciding in many cases to lock up our residents and throw away the key. That's not the criminal justice approach that we believe in, but it's what's forced on us as a result of our lack of statehood.

Nancy: What about the Republican argument that the push is an attempt by the left to tip the Senate in their favor because D.C. voters overwhelmingly vote for Democrats. How do you respond to that criticism?

Councilmember George: I just think it's fundamentally unfair. Our representation should not be based on partisan issues, and that really is the gist of it. To make that argument would be, it's completely undemocra-- It's undemocratic and it doesn't speak to what we believe in, no matter what state you live in in this country, that this is what our forefathers imagined for this country. Some of the biggest fights in this country have been over taxation without representation. I fundamentally believe our representation shouldn't be based on partisan issues. There's really no political litmus tests for joining the union as a state, or absolutely shouldn't be a litmus test for joining the union as a state.

Nancy: Have there been any other arguments against it made?

Councilmember George: I think other arguments that we've seen come up regarding D.C. statehood is also the argument that somehow we would have, the district residents would have some type of undue influence on Congress and we should be a neutral body. What I think most people don't understand is that the way our current HR 51 legislation is written is that there would be a capital enclave that surrounds the capital area.

That still would be neutral land and neutral area, and then the outside portions where district residents like myself and 700,000 other district residents live, would be considered a part of that. To say that somehow we would have an undue influence because of our position at the capital level, it doesn't make any logical sense at all.

Nancy: House Republicans have also said that if D.C. residents want representation in Congress, they could be incorporated into Maryland instead of becoming their own separate state. Would that address the issues at the center of this fight?

Councilmember George: No, that's not a viable alternative and D.C. residents are not interested in that. Maryland residents are not interested in that either. We know that from our strong support from congressmen like Jamie Raskin, who's talked about that before. It's just not a viable alternative for D.C. residents.

Nancy: Why is that? Can you explain why that wouldn't work?

Councilmember George: The history of DC and our community and what we've grown here to say, "Hey, well, let's have D.C. go back into Maryland." We have our own local government, our own communities, our own laws, and our own culture at the same time to be able to lead in that way. The other piece of that is, I heard some people making that argument and I said, great, why don't-- The same people making this argument, you can tell where there animus lies because I said, "Let West Virginia go back into Virginia. Let South Dakota and North Dakota become one state," and those same individuals who were making this argument are up in arms about it.

That's how you understand that there is- that's where you start to see the animus behind it and the partisan issues come to play, and the racial justice issues come to play, when we start asking for other states to merge into one another and they get up in arms. Those senators and congressmen specifically were very upset about the idea when we brought that back to them.

Nancy: That's interesting. The bill to make D.C. a state would need 60 votes to surpass the Senate filibuster. That's unlikely due to the 50-50 split in the Senate, but there are talks that statehood could be added to HR1, that's the voting rights reform Bill. Is that something that you and your colleagues on the council have talked about? Do you think that's a viable political path?

Councilmember George: I do. I think that's- we've talked about it and I think it's right. D.C. statehood is absolutely a Voting Rights issue and should be included in HR1 and I do think that that's a viable path forward for D.C. statehood and we're excited to see so much energy in Congress behind it. I think this year especially has really shed a light on D.C. statehood in a way that it hasn't been previously.

We've been front and center, whether it's because of what happened at the Capitol where our law enforcement stepped up to the plate to help save our country, or because we were denied our funding under the CARES Act by being a territory during COVID, and also being at the center of the Black Lives Matter protest, as a city that has a huge number of Black residents, and we talk about where we are as a country. We have a large number of Black residents who have been denied elected representation. I think this is the best time for us to discuss this, when we talk about wanting to right the wrongs of our history.

Nancy: We had been talking earlier in the show about the inequities of vaccine distribution. I'm wondering if the lack of statehood in Washington D.C. has affected the ability of the city to get its share of vaccine doses.

Councilmember George: Absolutely. I believe D.C.'s lack of statehood has affected our vaccine distribution, which affects our ability to protect the health of D.C. residents. Earlier in the pandemic, we were treated as a US territory and we were denied our fair share of federal assistance from the CARES Act to help keep our residents safe. Then when vaccines began being distributed, we weren't even given enough vaccines for our healthcare workers.

Then when D.C., Maryland and Virginia asked the federal government to vaccinate essential federal workers who live in our region, they denied the request. Then finally D.C. was also recently denied a mass vaccination site despite having vulnerable populations, based on a flawed metric from the federal government. These aren't just inconveniences. Our lack of statehood is jeopardizing D.C.'s ability to save the lives of its residents through vaccines.

Nancy: Janeese Lewis George is a council member for ward four in Washington D.C. Councilmember George, thanks so much for talking with us.

Councilmember George: Thank you so much for having me Nancy and I will say as a native Washingtonian, I am committed, as our mayor says, I was born without representation but I will not die without it.

Nancy: Thanks so much.

Councilmember George: Thanks so much. Bye.

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