Name: Steve Scalise’s Ignorant, Racist Case Against D.C. Statehood
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Steve Scalise’s Ignorant, Racist Case Against D.C. Statehood

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Things you buy through our links may earn New York a commission.The District of Columbia spent years struggling to get out from under the thumb of Congress and achieve some measure of political autonomy for its residents. The first step in this process was wresting control of the city’s budget from Congress and turning it over to its mayor and city council in the 1990s. The current struggle is to give its citizens statehood. The through-line of this is that conservative white Southerners in Congress insist that the city’s heavily Black population is unfit for self-governance.The most recent iteration comes in a memo circulated by House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, first reported by . On the surface, Scalise is following the usual pattern of anti-statehood arguments, which consist of devising some distinction between D.C. and other small states, either real (D.C. can’t be a state because it lacks a ) or imagined (D.C. supposedly lacks a ), and then insisting arbitrarily that a real state must possess this feature.Scalise offers three novel rationales to deny D.C. statehood. All of them rely on the supposition that its government is too incompetent to deserve statehood. First, he argues, D.C.’s budget is in chronic deficit:If you click on the link supposedly showing D.C.’s inability to balance its budget, it goes to a 17-year-old . That’s because the District’s budget is actually in superb shape. The city government amassed a huge budget exceeding half a billion dollars in fiscal year 2020, allowing it to easily ride out the downturn that accompanied the coronavirus.Scalise citing the congressional prohibition of commuter taxes as a reason D.C. can’t balance its budget — aside from being factually wrong, given that D.C. has balanced its budget — is especially perverse. Congress was only able to enact that prohibition because D.C. is not a state. If the lack of a commuter tax is what prevents D.C. from balancing its budget, then statehood is the solution. Scalise’s reasoning, such as it is, is utterly backward.Next, Scalise argues that D.C. is undeserving of statehood because it has too much crime:Yes, crime is up in D.C., as it is in many places. By the same token, crime is well below its low level in the 1990s.In any case, it is unclear what the murder rate has to do with the case for statehood. The suggestion that granting statehood would somehow worsen the crime problem is a suggestion too preposterous even for Scalise. In any case, if high levels of homicide were a disqualification for statehood, Congress should seriously consider selling Scalise’s home state of Louisiana, the state in the union, back to France.Finally, and most absurdly, Scalise argues that the District is too corrupt for statehood:This “argument” suffers from the same disqualifications as his previous crime-based argument. One, there’s no reason to think becoming a state would make the problem any worse. And two, it is extraordinarily rich, given that Scalise hails from perhaps the state in the country, a fact of life widely acknowledged within the state. Former U.S. representative Billy Tauzin used to say, “Half of Louisiana is under water and the other half is under indictment.” Even a columnist from the once bemoaned the state as being the country’s most corrupt.Scalise’s evidence leans heavily on the record of former mayor Marion Barry, who was indeed corrupt — like many public officials, especially the ones in Louisiana — but left office more than two decades ago and has been dead for more than half a dozen years.The “arguments” here are not some random talk-show host’s ranting, but the official talking points of a party leader in Congress. The all-but-explicit subtext is that the District of Columbia’s people do not deserve equal representation because too many of them are Black, and Black people can’t handle self-governance.Analysis and commentary on the latest political news from New York columnist Jonathan Chait.This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Googleandapply.Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy NoticeBy submitting your email, you agree to our and and to receive email correspondence from us.Things you buy through our links may earn New York a commission.THE FEEDCharles is now officially the kingKing Charles became the monarch after the death of his mother, but a meeting formally confirmed it on Saturday. He also approved the day of the Queen’s funeral&nbsp;, though it is not known what date this will be. Speaking before the Accession Council, the King said his mother’s death had been an “irreparable loss”. Meanwhile, senior MPs in the House of Commons, including Prime Minister Liz Truss, have been swearing allegiance to the new monarch.—Sign In to CommentThis site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Googleandapply.Already a subscriber? Sign InThis email will be used to sign into all New York sites. By submitting your email, you agree to our and and to receive email correspondence from us.Enter your email:Submit Emailedit emailForgot Password?Password must be at least 8 characters and contain:This password will be used to sign into all New York sites. By submitting your email, you agree to our and and to receive email correspondence from us.Sign InCreate AccountAs part of your account, you’ll receive occasional updates and offers from New York, which you can opt out of anytime.Continue ReadingAlready a subscriber? Sign InThis email will be used to sign into all New York sites. 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Things you buy through our links may earn New York a commission.The District of Columbia spent years struggling to get out from under the thumb of Congress and achieve some measure of political autonomy for its residents. The first step in this process was wresting control of the city’s budget from Congress and turning it over to its mayor and city council in the 1990s. The current struggle is to give its citizens statehood. The through-line of this is that conservative white Southerners in Congress insist that the city’s heavily Black population is unfit for self-governance.The most recent...

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Jonathan Chait

New York is an American biweekly magazine concerned with life, culture, politics, and style generally, and with a particular emphasis on New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite, and established itself as a cradle of New Journalism. Over time, it became more national in scope, publishing many noteworthy articles on American culture by writers such as Tom Wolfe, Jimmy Breslin, Nora Ephron, John Heilemann, Frank Rich, and Rebecca Traister.

Steve Scalise’s Ignorant, Racist Case Against D.C. Statehood

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