Repositioning the DC Statehood argument as a way to address structural imbalances in American democracy

One of the most important concepts I ever picked up came from the book Strategic Marketing for Not For Profit Organizations by Armand Lauffer, a social work professor at the University of Michigan.

One of the points made is that organizations have three publics: the input public which provides the resources the fuel what the organization does; the throughput public that does the work, usually staff and volunteers, led by management; and the output public to whom the organization's efforts are directed.

At the time I read this, like many people in Ann Arbor with progressive tendencies, I did door knocking for the Dean Baker for Congress campaign (he has been the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research for decades).  The district spanned from Detroit's western suburbs to Ann Arbor and its environs, and the seat was held by a Republican.

The big issue "for us" was US involvement in El Salvador, something which didn't resonate much in places like Plymouth.

I realized that most of the campaign messages (other than saving Social Security from the predations of Republicans) were for the "throughput public," the campaign workers.  We were the ones that cared about El Salvador, US foreign policy, etc., but those weren't the primary concerns of the voters we were trying to reach.

The DC Statehood effort suffers from the same problem.  It mostly uses the argument that it's unfair and undemocratic for US citizens in the continental United States to not have voting representatives.

This is mostly an argument that satisfies the throughput public, which in this case are the citizen residents of the District of Columbia.

While that is definitely the case, according to a recent national opinion survey by the Gallup Poll, most people in the rest of the United States don't care ("Most Americans say no statehood for the District of Columbia," Washington Post), sometimes making the argument that DC as the national capital "belongs to everybody" and avoid the issue of the lack of voting representation in the House and Senate.

Yes, it's "taxation without representation" which vis a vis the Colonies relationship to Britain, led to the American Revolution.  Yes, DC has more residents than many states.  Yes, DC residents probably pay more federal taxes than received for local functions, although this number is warped by the spending on agencies based here, etc.

The question then is how to make the rest of the US care.

At Civic Fest yesterday, the League of Women Voters had a booth where one of the primary messages was supporting statehood, and they had people on the grounds talking to people aiming to get them to come out to the September 15th Congressional hearing that will cover the issue.

I can take or leave statehood.  It'd be better sure.  But the Republicans don't want two more Democratic Senators.  And so people counter about retrocession to Maryland, where the non-federal part of the city becomes part of Maryland.

But I'd rather have our neither here nor there status as a functioning city-state (like Hamburg or Berlin in Germany, or  Mexico City) where we control our tax revenues completely (excepting federal strictures against a commuter tax), without out-state Maryland legislators "taking our money" and voting down our interests.  (E.g., a planning colleague in Montgomery County says that "MoCo functions as the ATM for the rest of Maryland.")

And I made my opinions known to the LWV volunteers, but we had good discussions, and it made me understand that the DC Statehood argument needs to be repositioned to how DC Statehood benefits the rest of the U.S. and strengthens democracy and political institutions, rather than focus on the benefits to DC residents.

You don't need statehood for DC to be better governed.  For years, I've made the point that for territories to become states, they had to meet certain conditions, and that DC should aim to be "the city on the hill" to prove that "we deserve" statehood.  Many residents counter with the "we deserve our rights" argument, that we shouldn't have to prove anything.

I think the city could be governed so much better.  But one of counter-points made yesterday was that while I have high expectations for what DC ought to be doing, is DC functioning as a polity worse than the nation's states.  To be fair, the answer is no.  Most of them aren't striving to be great either.  And many, by being so ideologically driven on taxes and abortion, are worse.

LWV volunteers then countered with their support of a public campaign financing act that will help to counter "pay to play" funding of candidates.  But frankly, I don't think that will make much difference.  Sure some representatives might be different, but at least the way it's turning out with the coming election in Ward 2, public financing seems to put a lot more money into ward-based campaigns than I ever expected ("Challengers to Jack Evans flex financial muscle under new D.C. public finance law," Washington Post).

More importantly, it's who gets elected and what they do in office, and DC's more grassroots politicians tend to revert to the Growth Machine mean over time.

For ideas on how to improve local governance see:

-- "Revisiting DC's corruption caucus," 2019 (which reprints and updates my broad recommendations for various structural changes, including more wards and two representatives per ward)
-- "Outline for a proposed Ward-focused (DC) Councilmember campaign platform and agenda," 2015
-- "Missing the point on constituent service/discretionary funds available from legislators," 2011 (participatory budgeting)

Still, I think that the LWV successfully countered my point that DC isn't governed so great by pointing out that governance-wise, we are equal to our desired peers.

Helping to alter the rural and small state preference-imbalance in the Senate's political representation by adding two Senators ought to be the primary argument.  Since the 2016 Presidential Election where Donald Trump was elected President despite losing the popular vote, besides the imbalance in the Electoral College--because all states have two Senators regardless of population, the same kind of imbalance is present in the Senate, where small states as a group have disproportionate representation:

-- "Senate Power Imbalance Tilts Toward Least-Populous States," Bloomberg Businessweek
-- "By 2040, two-thirds of Americans will be represented by 30 percent of the Senate," Washington Post
-- "The Senate represents states, not people. That's the problem," Vox
-- "The Small State Advantage in the United States Senate," New York Times

According to the New York Times, in an article from 2013, at that point in time, 62 Senators represented but 25% of the US population.

Granted, not all are "conservative," but a fair number are in ways that are deleterious to American democracy, especially in how the Senate over-focuses on small state interests, and under Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, actively aims to damage large state interests, packs the federal courts including the Supreme Court with highly ideologically conservative judges, etc.





The point emphasized by LWV volunteer Lesley Tharp is that by adding two Senators from DC, likely always to be Democrats, we will start to right this basic injustice and structural failure in how the Senate is structured.

I think that's a worthy argument.

The small states won't like it.

Definitely Republicans won't like it.

But it's an argument that isn't for the throughput public--DC residents--it's an argument that should resonate with the "output public."

It's for something that will benefit all of us as citizens in what is supposed to be a fair democracy.

And people against this argument will have to acknowledge that they are advocating for an unfair and unjust political system.

Sure, lots of conservatives argue against participatory democracy because the "US is a representative democracy."

But if the structure of representation is biased and flawed, then for the representative democracy to be fair and just and legitimate, structural failures must be addressed.

Statehood for DC, which would add two voting Senators, along with a voting Congressperson, is an important forward step in that direction.

Branding.  A key need then is a great tagline/message.  I have the gist, but it needs (a lot of) work:

Statehood for DC

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Improving and Refining American Democracy