40 Years of Home Rule and Nothing to Show for It

Let’s stop kidding ourselves. It’s been 40 years since D.C. got “limited Home Rule,” and nothing has changed. We are still, as former Mayor Sharon Pratt so memorably said, “not part of America.”

Here is the situation. In our national legislature, we have no voting representation. We do have a non-voting delegate who is not permitted to vote on the House floor. We have no presence at all in the U.S. Senate. Every law which our local legislature passes can be overturned by the U.S. Congress. Every penny of our locally raised funds can be negated. Our local judges are appointed by the president — not by locally elected office holders.

Why has nothing changed in over four decades? First and foremost is the lack of advocacy by our own elected officials. The District Council views itself not as a temporary transitional body, but as a permanent institution. It is more interested in preserving its status than creating real self-government.

Our non-voting delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton is a major impediment to any real change. This champion of incrementalism is most dangerous to our advancement by the language she uses. She continually labels defeat as victory. This behavior goes back more than 20 years.

There was one vote on D.C. statehood in the House of Representatives — in November 1993. Up to 151 Democrats voted for it. Norton at a post-vote press conference raved that 60 percent of the Democrats had voted for the bill. The number needed for passage was 218. We were to be comforted or pleased that we made a modest showing. That was supposed to be sufficient.
Four months ago, there was a D.C. statehood bill introduced in the Senate. Norton refused to go to the four uncommitted Democratic senators on the relevant committee (Claire McCaskill, Mark Pryor, Jon Tester and Heidi Heitkamp) and ask for their vote. Council member Mary Cheh lobbied Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) for his sponsorship of the bill — not Norton. A hearing on the bill was good enough for Norton. When it was her turn to testify she never once asked for a mark-up of the bill or a vote on the bill, even though Democrats had a nine-to-seven majority.

Norton holds the moniker, “Warrior on the Hill.” This is an enormous misnomer. She is a perpetuator of the status quo. Her very presence in office holds us back.

In assessing blame, we cannot forgive the local population. What a passive lot! We are treated as third-class citizens. We accept it. We are excluded from democracy. We don’t make a fuss. No meaningful civil disobedience. No active effective citizens movement. No, we just take it.

I once asked Rev. Jesse Jackson when this would change. He simply replied, “When it rises to the level of personal insult.” African-American, white, Hispanic, Asian, it doesn’t seem to make a difference. We haven’t yet been personally insulted. We are far too polite, far too well behaved.

Be under no illusion. Full and complete self-government means one thing: statehood for D.C. Anything less is incomplete.

We missed two golden opportunities for making D.C. the 51st state. In 1993, there were 56 Democrats and 44 Republicans in the Senate; 259 Democrats and 176 Republicans in the House. In 2009, 60 Democrats and 40 Republicans comprised the Senate with 257 Democrats and 178 Republicans in the House. Both times, there was a Democratic president. The stars were perfectly aligned. We failed.

We were on the right side of history, but we lacked a strategy and a fierce discipline. Let us vow: never will we let these opportunities pass us by again.

Mark Plotkin is a columnist for The Georgetowner and The Downtowner as well as a political analyst to the BBC on American politics and a contributor to TheHill.com.