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Issues D.C. Council Actions Statehood Sam Jordan's Testimony at the DC Council Roundtable April 7, 2009
Issues D.C. Council Actions Statehood Sam Jordan's Testimony at the DC Council Roundtable April 7, 2009
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| Sam Jordan's Testimony at the DC Council Roundtable April 7, 2009 |
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Remarks - Samuel Jordan - Special Committee on Statehood and Self-Determination
Councilmember Michael A. Brown, Chair
April 7, 2009
Thank you and good evening. I am Samuel Jordan, former Chair of the DC Statehood Party. When former Representative Tom Davis of northern Virginia introduced the DC House Voting Rights bill in the 109th and 110th Republican Congresses, he did not intend to empower the people of the District of Columbia. Accordingly, the bill does not assure full and equal representation in Congress. It does not give the District full, local control of its laws, budgets and judiciary. As shown with the gun law amendment, Congress would still govern the District. The bill does not give the District a fair federal payment or a fair reciprocal tax, although the District is the only jurisdiction in the entire nation that may not tax income where it is earned. The bill provides no substantial, material or political improvement in the status of the District. We should never propose a measure in Congress that only changes the status of our Delegate and not the status of the District. Tom Davis drafted a Republican trick bill that would give Utah an extra vote in the Electoral College without an additional Electoral College vote for the people of the District. Had the presidential election of 2008 been as close as in 2000 and 2004, one Electoral College vote may have been decisive. That election is over. It wasn’t close. The bill has outlived its usefulness. It should be retired to the dust bin of a deceitful and manipulative history. The 111th Congress features a Democratic bi-cameral majority. We may be wasting a major historical opportunity with the Tom Davis bill. Furthermore, the bill’s anti-democratic nature has been exposed by the refusal of the bill’s promoters to consult with the people of the District in any meaningfu manner, despite the fact that the people of the District in 1980 and 1982 seated Delegates to a Constitutional Convention and ratified the Constitution of the State of New Columbia. The DC House Voting Rights bill is a bill of shameful submission. The gun law amendments were attached because the bill did not propose sovereignty for the District. The lack of sovereignty invites colonial intermeddling. We must instruct our Delegate to withdraw the bill. I urge the Council to implement a “Steps to Statehood” program immediately that would be in fact a people’s awakening and action program. The Council and the people of the District would create a formidable partnership. The Constitution of 1982 should be brought out of moth balls for the people’s review and appropriate action. In this hearing a reminder of the power of a people’s movement is also timely, because the promoters of the Tom Davis bill now proudly call themselves incrementalists. In doing so they distort the lessons of history. The District was governed by Three Commissioners for 99 years - 1874 to 1973 - that is incremental. However, the District got the right to vote for president, a non-voting Delegate in the House, an elected Mayor and City Council all within 10 years of the March on Washington - which, forgotten by many, also demanded a Free DC. Or, we could say that the District got a non-voting Delegate, an elected Mayor and Council all within six years of the rebellion following the assassination of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. That history will not be repeated, but there should be no doubt about the power of a people’s decision to throw off the shackles of colonial government and blatant discriminatory treatment. That power still resides in the people of the District. We must begin by instructing our Delegate to withdraw the DC House Voting Rights bill and in its place submit a statehood bill. If sovereignty and autonomy are what we want, then sovereignty and autonomy are what we should demand. I would also make two observations. First, statehood is not compatible with the DC Voting Rights Act because the Voting Rights Act is revocable - if passed by one Congress it can be repealed by the next. Therefore, it is not a step to statehood. There is no such thing as a revocable step to statehood. Nor is the non-voting Delegate a step to statehood. The District had a non-voting Delegate to Congress from 1871 to 1875. A second observation, a statehood bill cannot carry a rider or amendment to local laws. A statehood bill is voted up or down. A state must enter the union on an equal footing with all other states, not conditioned by a gun amendment or a needle exchange amendment. A statehood bill is an appeal for sovereignty and repels Congressional meddling. Thank you
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