Virginians have a lot to gain from D.C. statehood

For years, I worked in the U.S. Capitol building as a political reporter and lived in its grand shadow on Capitol Hill. I interviewed lawmakers from around the country about issues facing their constituents, but I never talked to a voting member who represented my concerns in Congress. I paid my share of federal taxes and served jury duty, but I never got the opportunity to vote for a lawmaker who represented me.

I was then – and am now – a strong supporter of statehood for Washington, D.C., for the obvious reason that we won’t have a true democracy without it. The framers fought a war over taxation without representation, though of course representation was only for White male landowners. We’ve made significant advances in enfranchisement since then, but more than 700,000 U.S. citizens — a plurality of whom are Black — today have no real voice in their government.

We still have taxation without representation in our supposed democracy — a galling fact the city pointedly makes on its standard-issue license plates. This — even though the district has more people than two other states, pays more in federal taxes than 22 states, and pays more per capita federal taxes than any state, according to 51 for 51, an advocacy group for D.C. statehood.

I moved across the river a few years ago, but I haven’t lost my passion to make the nation’s capital our 51st state. Indeed, as a close neighbor, we Virginians have a lot to gain. As Aaron Fritschner, a spokesman for Rep. Don Beyer, D-Alexandria, told me, “Our hand would be significantly strengthened.”

Read more: https://www.virginiamercury.com/2021/03/10/virginians-have-a-lot-to-gain-from-d-c-statehood/