Flotsam & Jetsam: One never knows

Sam Smith - Most days journalism is like driving a tour bus through a neighborhood called News. You point out the sites, tell the stories, and then everyone leaves the bus and that's it. But every once in a awhile something on the tour sticks around. Like a story I wrote back in 1970 about why and how Washington DC - then without even an elected mayor or city council - could become a state.

The Constitution provides that Congress shall "exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square)." This meant that DC - then with a population of over 750,000 including 70% blacks - was a colony of the United States.

My solution was simple: just dramatically reduce the size of the constitutional district and create a state out of the rest.

The statehood idea itself was not new. A year earlier, a group of black activists had held a news conference calling for DC statehood without dealing with the legal question. It had, been one of those 12-hour revolutions — running from the 11 am news conference to the 11 pm news broadcast.

Also, Norman Mailer and Jimmy Breslin had run for New York mayor and city council president on a platform that included not only statehood for the Big Apple but monthly “Sweet Sundays” – when the city would comes to a halt “so human beings can rest and talk to each other and the air can purify itself.”

Not many weeks after my article appeared, I was invited to a meeting to discuss the candidacy of major civil rights leader Julius Hobson for non-voting delegate to Congress, one of the tokens (along with an elected school board) that the federal government had thrown our way to help calm the city down.

We met in a barren church basement hall on East Capitol Street. Just a few of us, our chairs pulled in a small circle. After a while, Julius asked on what platform we thought he should run. Someone in the room referred to my proposal. It was only the second time I had heard anyone mention the article. One reader had sent me five dollars, asking that it be contributed to the cause if it ever got going.

After discussing the concept for a few minutes, Julius sudden announced that he liked and was going to run on it.

Subsequently, only one major politician would actually come out against statehood. Even federally appointed Mayor Walter Washington found it “interesting.” But no major politician worked for it, either; no major media gave it the time of day; and much of the rest of the city’s elite viewed it as another example of the flakiness that went with the territory of the times.

Bu the Hobson campaign launched the DC Statehood Party and three years later the city was granted an elected mayor and city council.

Support within the city for statehood grew. In 1982 DC voters even approved a constitution for the  state of "New Columbia." But Congress was not happy with the idea. In fact, in 2008, it prohibited the District from spending any funds on lobbying for voting representation or statehood. DC statehood did come up for a vote in the House in 1993 but lost.


But DC statehood has recently gained new life. Over 200 House members now support it and the House Majority Leader a commitee hearing on the topic.


Of course, we still face a GOP Senate and President Trump, but it's only taken a half century to get it on the table. And as Fats Waller used to say, "One never knows, do one?"