Washington Post Op-ed: What’s next for D.C. statehood
What’s Next for D.C. Statehood
By Eleanor Holmes Norton
December 2, 2016
After a whopping 85 percent of D.C. residents voted to become the 51st state, we don’t have time to get sidetracked by bewilderment and disappointment in the national election. Even if Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton had won, what we need to do now would not have been much different.
A historically difficult issue such as statehood needs strategy that morphs easily from one period into another without gaps that cause people to lose interest or hope. The District’s plan still has that potential. Its major value — petitioning Congress for statehood with all the prerequisites met on D.C.’s end — forms a viable basis for continuous action where it is most needed, by residents.
Until now, the District has placed the burden on Congress. Each year, we have not had trouble meeting our goal of achieving more House and Senate cosponsors for our statehood bill than in prior years. It is important to keep building this base of support to remind Congress of D.C.’s statehood priority. However, our 215-year struggle to be treated like other jurisdictions tells us that this insular strategy needs a wind at its back. Even bills that have cosponsors sufficient for passage do not move forward.
My greatest frustration is that most Americans think our residents have the same rights as they do. We have two constituencies to excite: ourselves and the nation. Continuous activism for D.C. statehood is small because we have not created enough ways for busy residents to keep involved. The overwhelming support for D.C. statehood revealed that we have a large base of support here, but national support cannot increase without more continuous action at home.
We cannot afford to waste the momentum provided by the Nov. 8 statehood vote. The many groups working for statehood offer a core working group if they come together on a plan.
Central to a serious statehood plan for 2017 is greater involvement from residents. Too often, we have thought that what stands in our way is funding to inform the country what “taxation without representation” really means — being first per capita in federal income taxes paid and use of congressional power to interfere with local laws and budgets based on political disagreement. A public relations strategy alone to spread such messages is old school.
There are many ways to enlarge the local and national base for statehood and for other critical congressional issues, such as budget and legislative autonomy. Putting a premium on strategies that increase local participation is the indicated next step. Today, although many statehood activists already use social media, it remains almost untapped as a coherent statehood organizing strategy. Entire movements are generated by social media today. The anti-Trump demonstrations that broke out after the presidential election all over the country are the most recent. Groups such as Black Lives Matter have organized nationwide using nothing more than tweets and other social media. Neither used expensive public relations or old-fashioned organizing.
Among us are many residents who could help deliver coordinated statehood messages here and across the country. Residents too busy to come out to demonstrate or lobby Congress could be involved using only their phones.
Here is an example begging to be tapped: a priceless parody of congressional treatment of the District aired last year by John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight. There is no better way to help Americans side with the District than to make fun of congressional treatment of the city, as Oliver’s parody does. The District’s film agency has permission to splice and use the parody on social media.
Now we need to make the best use of the Oliver parody and other social media messaging in an organized D.C. statehood social media campaign. A few of our many residents for whom social media is second nature could help organize it. Congressional ethics bar members from organizing grass-roots lobbying activities, but this campaign is tailor-made for residents. The 2016 statehood vote obligates the District to respond with organized action.
Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat, is the D.C. delegate to the House of Representatives.