Mike the Mad Biologist

And I’m not talking about professional Democrats, but people like you and me. By way of G. Elliot Morris:

Democrats are only +15 for D.C. statehood. We need to be better than that. And it’s not just about the two senate seats either, it’s also . To make this topical, you might have read last week how the Republican-controlled Kansas legislature overrode the Democratic governor’s veto of a bill that would invalidate trans people’s drivers licenses if they were not marked with their gender as noted at birth. This is awful, evil legislation. And there is nothing that the residents of the colonial territory known as the District of Columbia could do to stop congressional Republicans from inflicting the same law on D.C., were Republicans inclined to do so–to be clear, there is no indication they currently are. Maybe senate Democrats would filibuster this, but the history of senate Democrats in terms of protecting D.C.’s limited Home Rule is spotty*.

And to make it clear: it is bad enough when Kansans do this evil to themselves, but it is worse if something like this is inflicted on people who have no recourse.

I could speculate as to why too many Democrats do not support statehood. Some of it is a combination of racism and dislike of cities, but there are too many Democrats who do not support statehood for this to be the entire explanation. Some Democrats likely believe that everyone in D.C. is a ‘politician’ and so we do not deserve statehood. Regardless, rank-and-file Democrats need to up their game.

*House Democrats, to their credit, historically have been very good–not perfect, but better than senate Democrats. In fact, the first piece of legislation passed by the Democratic-controlled House in 2021 was a D.C. statehood bill.