Earlier this week, Republican House Minority Whip Steve Scalise argued that D.C.’s high homicide rate means D.C. “can’t perform basic governmental duties like protecting its residents from criminals” (says the Congressman from Louisiana, which has a sky high homicide rate…). In keeping with this idea, I propose that any state which has failed at the greatest acute domestic crisis of the last half-century, the COVID-19 pandemic, should lose its statehood privileges.

All Lives Matter amirite?

According to the CDC, 28 states have a higher per capita COVID-19 death rate (including the Gret Stet of Louisiana!). I suggest any state doing worse than D.C. also “can’t perform basic governmental duties”*.

That this proposal would give Democrats a four-seat majority is purely a coincidence, and should not affect consideration or the legitimacy of this modest proposal.

*On the one hand, D.C. has relatively few people 65 and older. On the other hand, D.C.’s population is 48% Black (Black people have twice the per capita mortality rate of white people), and its elderly population is two-thirds Black. Then again, this is a modest proposal anyway.