A Statehood campaign yard sign in a community planter in Mt. Pleasant by Mike Maguire licensed under Creative Commons.

It’s great to have leaders who stand up for what they say they believe in, isn’t it, fellow DC residents? We know because up until recently it seemed like all of ours were prepared to go to the mat for at least one popular idea: full DC statehood rights are both necessary and a matter of principle, not of political calculation.

But now, the ‘51’ lapel pin drops: when the Council passed two laws this year that some of our leaders don’t think are such a hot idea, suddenly “hands off DC” seems out of fashion. Congress has exercised its right to express disapproval and support overturning the bills, which could well happen.

The moment arrived for leadership to articulate why this would be an unacceptable attack on democracy, divorced entirely from personal agreement with the bills. But leaders who should have stood up for us chose instead to blame voters and councilmembers for the congressional meddling they themselves have decried for years.

Mural celebrating Josephine Butler, DC Statehood and environmental justice advocate by Ted Eytan licensed under Creative Commons.

Vote!…no, not like that

Mayor Muriel Bowser and Shadow Senator Michael Brown suggest the congressional leash-pulling is DC Council’s fault for passing laws that Congress doesn’t like. But DC voters elected Councilmembers to pass laws. Are DC voters to blame by extension, for daring to vote for legislators who then dared to do their jobs?

In voting in favor of the disapproval resolution, House Democrats look no more committed to the principles than they are to the politics. This sentiment, while philosophically poor, is at least less surprising from them than it is from our own elected officials, who ought to be leading a clear and united charge. With allies like these, however, we need a good hard look at the prospects for statehood as a matter purely of political palatability, rather than the principled stand we were told it was.

Shadow Senator Brown counsels us “there is an old adage in politics ‘never poke a skunk.’” We must all be grateful such shrewd reasoning didn’t carry the day during past movements for justice in our nation’s history.

Predictably, some non-elected thought leaders are weighing in too, suggesting that we should only pass laws that don’t get us into trouble with our congressional overlords. Nice! Every ounce of sympathy one might have with Colbert King’s argument that the Council and the Mayor should sing from the same hymn sheet dissipates on grasping his conclusion that the Council should avoid passing laws the Mayor doesn’t like, not that the Mayor should perform her sworn duty to uphold and protect those laws.

Profiles in courage these are not. Our leaders owe us the basic respect of protecting our democratic rights, regardless of whether they approve of what we do with those rights. Thankfully, many have stood up to state this categorically. But a chain’s only as strong as its weakest link.

It’s not about the bills

2022’s Revised Criminal Code Act and the Local Resident Voting Rights Amendment Act have excited a range of responses among the public and apparent DC-watchers from further afield. That’s of no consequence to whether to uphold them. When it comes to duly-passed laws by our duly-elected legislature, the basic principle of determining our own laws via representative democracy goes far deeper than support for one bill or idea (below, veteran politics observer Keith Ivey reflects on an earlier challenge to home rule). Few governance principles should be more sacred in the United States, even when they aren’t fully formalized through actual statehood.

Were the need so truly dire to turn these laws around, as journalist Martin Austermuhle pointed out, any opponent has the opportunity to advocate for a referendum for the voting public to consider them, rather than appealing to Mom and Dad to take the wheel.

Lapel-pin advocacy

This week made clear that some of our leaders’ commitment to DC statehood is only pin-deep: they’ll wear the lapel pins, and show up for events and photo ops. But failing to stand up for it when it counted shows their support to be shallow and opportunistic, taking advantage of an immensely locally popular idea for the vibes and shrinking away when the going got tough.

It’s understandable, and unchangeable, that elected officials want to be associated with popular things. But it’s grating for those of us whose support is about one of our nation’s most cherished principles, and not whether we particularly like one or the other bit of legislation. So let me suggest an alternative pin that most DC residents like, won’t cause confusion, and has about the same durability as this fair-weather support for statehood: a cherry blossom.

Caitlin Rogger is deputy executive director at Greater Greater Washington. Broadly interested in structural determinants of social, economic, and political outcomes in urban settings, she worked in public health prior to joining GGWash. She lives in Capitol Hill.