Getting to DC Statehood

If this is the same as the 1993 bill then it needs amending. That bill punted on commuter taxes by leaving the national capital service area in the residual district, putting it beyond the reach of new Columbia commuter taxation. This deal was made with members who are no longer in Congress. We can do better by making a commuter tax deal and directing the funds to VA and md for them to fund prisons and mental health residential facilities for chronic patients whose only alternative is jail or the streets. We also need language to give MD general assembly a vote to choose between retro and statehood, thus satisfying Republican demands that it be considered. Either way, DC voters would get a vote to accept or reject statehood or retrocession, preserving the status quo.

We also need the Council to abolish shadow positions and convert our senators to the real thing so that they can reopen the 20 citizens lawsuit by presenting their credentials and then be rejected. Until they do the case is not ripe.

Second, we need to modify the 20 citizens suit (which the DC AG may want to join as counsel - they need to meet with him ASAP) to limit the complaint from calling the entire arrangement unconstitutional (which it is mot because of the District clause and because the other examples discussed by LaRoache in the original cases were solved politically making his approach non judistiable) to a simple complaint that the charter is really our constitution and that no other state legislature can amend its constitution accept by having either a plebiscite or identical passage with an intervening election (which would not be applicable in DC in any case). The fact that the charter was adopted by plebiscite means that all amendment's must be. The Council could test this By putting all intervening amendment's on the ballot and putting in a charter amendment requiring all congressional amendment's be put to a vote. The US DOJ could not let that slide and we would get what George wanted, which was DOJ arguing that DC is a colony and forcing the SCOTUS to settle the issue by agreeing that DC voters can veto congressional acts over them or by agreeing that DC is a plantation and its citizens slaves.

We could also do an initiative for DC voters to demand that Congress be expelled. This can be done in two ways. They can leave or they can redraw the boundaries so that only congressional office and parking space, the Capitol building and grounds and the library of Congress as the residual District with the remaining area made a territory pending passage of HR 51 as above. This is another way to get the case into federal court as the board of elections would have to refuse the request or allow it which would have justice sue DC to remove the amendment from the ballot. Indeed, all measures described above (real senators, ratifying congressional changes, replacing district titles with state titles in the charter, requiring ratification votes to amend the charter, ratifying the proposed 1987 constitution with or without any further changes by the council and expelling Congress) should be put before voters in either a special election or in November 2020. There is nothing like an election to educate citizens and scheduling a special election gets it in front of the court faster, possibly with a three judge panel to expedite SCOTUS action by the 2020 election, thus nationalizing the issue. Of course such a legal strategy may just force the GOP to geek and pass HR 51.