I visited New York over Christmas and was glad to find Manhattan’s Upper West Side much as it always has been. Parking was still hard to find, and parking enforcement was very visible. People were crossing the streets with and without a “walk” sign, and yellow taxis were plentiful on Broadway and on Columbus avenues. Most importantly, there were no soldiers. Nor did I see any ominously masked people or big black cars with dark tinted windows traveling in caravan with police cars.
How different the Upper West Side felt from my Washington, DC neighborhood. How much less ominous. Although we are no less peaceful than Manhattanites, pay plenty of taxes, and vote in local and presidential elections, we live without the buffer of statehood between daily city life and an unscrupulous president seeking imperial powers. A few days in New York offers new meaning and perspective to the important protections statehood under our federal system.
Remember what we learned in school. With the Revolution the colonies became independent states. As sovereign states they agreed to grant specific powers to the new federal government. All powers not specifically granted to the new government, however, remained under the authority of the individual states. It was a compromise in shared sovereignty forged by necessity and adopted with high hopes and trepidation.
Over time monumental changes like continental expansion and industrialization, and cataclysmic events like the Great Depression and World War II, narrowed the sphere of state sovereignty. Immigration, for instance, was under the authority of the states until the 1890s. By the beginning of the 21st century, federal encroachments on state sovereignty were largely regarded as necessary for fostering forward-looking national policies from affordable housing, voting rights, to gender equity. We had become comfortable with very expensive and seamless systems of commerce, transportation, communication, and social justice supported by national legislation and paid, at least in part, by the federal tax dollars.
The history of Washington as the capital of the nation has followed the rise of the United States. Established with yet another compromise by our founding fathers at a time when physical proximity to the center of power was equated with the potential for greater influence, the District was ruled by Congress and permanent residents were denied the right to vote or to have any representation. Although Washingtonians gained the right to vote in presidential elections and a limited degree of self-rule in 1975, over the 21st century we blossomed. We have contributed more tax dollars than we received. We have struggled mightily to become more just and equitable.
Suddenly, however, the path to the future is no longer clear. A billion dollars of our locally raised tax money is largely inaccessible, and an executive order has brought soldiers to our streets. The greatest fears of our country’s founding generation have come to the fore. We are the prisoner of a compromise relevant to the world of 250 years ago. Without the bulwark of state sovereignty and representation in Congress we are a plaything of Congressional irresponsibility and executive madness. We need a new compromise that grants Washington statehood to assure our future as a city and state and to assure our citizen rights.
Dr. Marjorie Lightman is a long time resident of Southwest DC.
