The following is an exclusive excerpt from bestselling author Sean Spicer's latest book, Radical Nation: Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ Dangerous Plan for America (Humanix, Oct. 26, 2021).
A State Called DC?
Another assault on our nation’s future is the Democrats’ push to make the District of Columbia a state. The people who live in D.C. pay taxes but have no voting representatives, so one of the slogans for D.C. statehood is “No taxation without representation.”
Susan Rice, President Biden’s director of the Domestic Policy Council, has even said that D.C. statehood would end “the enduring oppression of the citizens of the District of Columbia.”
Democrats argue D.C. statehood on the grounds of racial justice. Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley said:
The state of Washington, D.C., would be 46 percent black, which would make it the state with the highest percentage of black people in the entire country. ... Uplifting black political power must be a part of the conversation. We cannot allow electoral justice for the people of Washington, D.C., to be denied any longer. ... I’m going to make it plain: D.C. statehood is a racial justice issue. And racism kills.
Congresswoman Pressley is probably sincere, but she’s also sincerely wrong. And her fellow Democrats don’t see D.C. statehood as an issue of justice. They see it as an issue of raw political power.
In the 2020 presidential election, voters in the District of Columbia cast 92.2% of their votes for Biden-Harris and 5.4% for Trump-Pence. That incredibly lopsided result tells you all you need to know about the real motives of the Democrats.
D.C. statehood would create a perpetually blue state and add two more U.S. senators to the Democratic column. This is why the issue has only partisan Democratic support. Both sides know what this is really all about — political power.
The framers of the Constitution intentionally set aside a special district to allow the federal government to operate independently. Article I, Section 8, Clause 17 of the Constitution explicitly provides for a “District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of Government of the United States.”
The Founders believed that the seat of government should not be part of any state, nor should it be treated as a state. Instead, the seat of government should be located in a special district where legislators from every state could gather on neutral ground and conduct the people’s business.
The Founding Fathers worried that if the seat of government were located in a state, that state would have too much influence over the federal government.
They also worried that if the seat of government were its own state, the people there would vote to expand federal power.
The framers explicitly made the seat of government a unique district, neither located within a state nor a state in its own right, when they ratified the Constitution in 1788. D.C. was formed by taking parts of Maryland and Virginia.
As time went on, a chunk of land was given back to Virginia (which is why it is no longer a perfect square). If areas of D.C. are no longer needed as part of the federal government, then they should be given back to Maryland and Virginia, respectively.
Getting around the Constitution
D.C. statehood is plainly unconstitutional, full stop, period, right? Not so fast. The Democrats think they’ve figured a way around the framers’ intent.
H.R.51, a 2019 bill passed by the House, gerrymanders the District of Columbia, isolating the Capitol, the White House, the Supreme Court, the National Mall, and other federal buildings as the seat of government.
The surrounding neighborhoods of the District of Columbia would become a state.
The advocates of this legislation point out that the framers of the Constitution set a maximum size for the district, not to exceed 10 miles square.
They didn’t say anything about a minimum size.
So the Democrats think they can carve out a new blue state without spending the time and trouble to amend the Constitution.
Will they get away with it? Will the Supreme Court agree with their scheme?
It may depend on whether the case is decided by the nine Supreme Court justices we have today — or the unknown number of justices in Joe Biden’s packed court.
What will that mean for the future of the nation? Stay tuned.
Note: Get Sean Spicer’s Radical Nation in bookstores everywhere or on Amazon – Click Here.
Sean Spicer is the former White House press secretary, bestselling author, and host of Spicer & Co. at 6pm ET on Newsmax.
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