These charts were made from information in a new YouGov Poll -- done on September 18th and 19th of a random national sample of 1,000 adults, with a margin of error of about 4 points.
More than 649,000 people live in the District of Columbia, but they have no voting representation in Congress. They have no senators, and only one representative (Eleanor Holmes Norton) who cannot vote. That means there are well over half a million Americans living here in the continental United States without any congressional representation.
This brings up the question of whether the District of Columbia should be granted statehood status. That would give them two voting senators and one voting representative -- just like other small states. Unfortunately, Americans don't seem to want D.C. to become a state. Only 27% said they should be a state, while 49% said they should not (and the other 24% didn't know what to think). And when the poll was broken down demographically, only three groups had a plurality in favor of statehood (Blacks, Hispanics, and Democrats) -- while no group had a majority favoring statehood. Meanwhile, six groups had a majority opposing statehood (men, 45 to 64 year-olds, those 65 and over, Whites, Independents, and Republicans).
This seems a little strange to me -- especially for a country that started it's war for independence with the phrase "No Taxation Without Representation". Do the American people no longer believe as their Founding Fathers did? Is taxation without representation only bad when done by the British, and perfectly OK when done by the American government? The citizens of the District of Columbia certainly have to pay the same federal taxes that all other Americans have to pay, so why is it OK for them to have no congressional representation?
I can understand why the Republicans would oppose statehood for the District of Columbia. They know the district would likely elect minority senators and a representative -- and they would probably be Democrats, since the Republican Party has become a haven for racists that continues to harbor anti-minority policies. But why would other groups deny one of the basic tenets of our Founding Fathers -- a tenet that was a primary cause of our own war for independence? Does that even make sense?
If will never, ever, ever happen. Never never never. The Republicans will never agree to it as long as DC is reliably Democratic. And though I think Democrats are more principled than Republicans in general, they would never agree to it if DC were reliably GOP. So talking about it is a big waste of time. The sensible thing is to turn Washington over to Maryland so its voters can be enfranchised, just as happened when the other part of DC was given back to Virginia -- the part we now know as Arlington, VA.
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