Update on National Guard

The National Guard deployment in DC has had some changes after 4 July. The first is that the number of troops is to be doubled. The second is that the President has extended their deployment into January of 2029.

I have sent emails to both senators and my very right wing congresscritter today. I don't expect anything from my representative, but I have high hopes from my senators if only because they were directly attacked by the president at his most recent public rant.

An excerpt:

On a personal note, until I came to Savannah to look after my late mother, I was a resident of Washington, DC.

Imagine my shock and despair when, just before Independence Day, I visited the District. As someone who lived in Berlin before the wall came down, I can say without hesitation that the District was an occupied city. I should not see National Guard with automatic weapons at the Archives/Navy Memorial Metro stop. I should be able to access the National Mall, even at night. I used to walk home from Chinatown to my apartment in SW at 10 pm. Three weeks ago, I wasn't even allowed to go see the Lincoln Memorial at night.

Congress is in charge of the District's well being. From where I'm standing, Congress has abrogated its responsibility in favor of kowtowing to a President who is rapidly becoming more unhinged in his speech.

Please either back statehood for the District of Columbia or introduce legislation which will assert Congressional rights over the District and lift this siege. After I returned home to Savannah, I read that the President has doubled the number of National Guardsmen in the District and extended their service through January of 2029. This is not right.

In fiscal year 2024, the District paid $45,243,625 in Federal taxes. Puerto Rico, Vermont, Alaska, Wyoming, West Virginia, and North Dakota *combined* paid $44,810,347. Why does the District deserve less freedom and less representation than the five states listed? Puerto Rico would need to hold a new referendum to pursue statehood.

Please feel free to take and use any part of this.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30	31

Most Popular Tags

architecture - 5 uses
art - 17 uses
artists - 7 uses
basics - 8 uses
books - 18 uses
culture wars - 10 uses
dance - 6 uses
dc - 39 uses
dc statehood - 7 uses
dislikes - 9 uses
dogs - 12 uses
family - 14 uses
fanfiction - 11 uses
fangirl! - 7 uses
film - 12 uses
food - 67 uses
foods - 8 uses
gay - 5 uses
georgia - 9 uses
health - 29 uses
history - 6 uses
lecture - 7 uses
likes - 19 uses
literature - 7 uses
meme - 24 uses
mom - 16 uses
movies - 26 uses
museums - 30 uses
music - 15 uses
personal - 10 uses
politics - 56 uses
polls - 9 uses
r.i.p. - 49 uses
race - 16 uses
recipe - 23 uses
review - 11 uses
sick - 6 uses
squee - 5 uses
television - 21 uses
theater - 13 uses
travel - 13 uses
vegan - 7 uses
vegetarian - 7 uses
walking - 7 uses
washington - 22 uses
weather - 6 uses
writer's block - 11 uses
writing - 6 uses
wwi - 6 uses
yuletide - 49 uses

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

winterfirelight

I didn't realize they were going to be doubled. That's genuinely frightening. I'm afraid for all of my friends who still live there. Thanks for the excerpt - I'll certainly take the opportunity to bother my congressfolks about this. Statehood is long overdue.

fabrisse

I voted for it in 2016 and would vote for it even harder now.

ionelv

There are two big fat reasons why DC will never get statehood according to Gemini:
1. Partisan Balance: Republicans strongly oppose statehood because the District is heavily Democratic. Adding a solidly blue state would shift the balance of power in Congress, particularly in the Senate.
2. Constitutional Intent: Article I of the U.S. Constitution provides Congress with exclusive jurisdiction over the seat of the federal government. Opponents argue that creating a state out of the capital violates the original framers' intent to ensure the federal government functions without interference from any individual state.

Personally, I think DC deserves statehood and even more than that, on a related note (i.e. fair representation in Congress), states should have the power to split themselves into smaller states (like it already happened thrice).

1. The partisan balance is hogwash. Yes, DC is deeply Democratic, but that's at least partially because any Republican who lives in the District finds a way to vote in their "home" state. Military and State Department officers who go abroad can both do it easily. Someone who works for a member of Congress or the Senate remains a voter in that member's state. Other people maintain vacation homes. By the second senate race, the position would probably be in play for both parties. [Dad was military. I was considered a citizen of California when I voted the first time because both my parents were considered citizens of California. I'd lived maybe 18 months of my 19 years of life in California, but because we lived in Brussels, that's how I was registered to vote.]

I would also like to point out there had been a move to get DC a voting representative in the House without statehood. We would have accepted that. We would also have accepted being given territorial status and having the federal taxes removed. Congress has been treating the District as a partisan football for decades.

2. There is a way, by exchanging District own land with Federally owned land, to carve out Washington from the District of Columbia. When the Constitution was written it was assumed that the President and the foreign Ambassadors would be the main people who lived permanently in the city. DC was supposed to be a ghost town when Congress wasn't in session. Trains and airplanes and a much wider expanse of land and issues changed that by the late 19th century.

1. Small clarification: Giving DC territorial status would NOT remove federal income tax as that tax applies based on US citizenship regardless of residence. For example, I lived in Canada for past 20 years but as a US citizen I am required to file federal income taxes every year (although I do get credits for paying Canadian taxes to minimize double taxation).
2. Exchanging land would most likely require a constitutional amendment which is a very tall order, ain't it?

Statehood requires a constitutional amendment, but exchanging land was done fairly frequently. When a new family homeless shelter was being built in SW DC, the placement included five square feet of Federal land. As part of the plans, it was exchanged to District land with some District land adjacent to a Federal office building being redefined as Federal. It took approval from the subcommittee in charge of DC and a resolution from the District Council. Getting all of the little plots rearranged and surveyed would take time, but not major lawmaking.

I found something about territorial tax filings but am having trouble with paste on my tablet. I'll add it later. It reads to me like, under most circumstances, residents only have to file territorial taxes, not federal ones.

Yeah, US income tax for territory residents is complicated, but it does exist even if lesser. On the land swap, notice that your example involves swapping DC land for DC land which is nowhere near the same as swapping DC for non-DC land (which most certainly would have to be state land which would trigger state rights and a slew of legal issues).

The swap was land in DC which belonged to DC for land in DC which belonged to the Federal government. The five square feet for the homeless shelter was marked as Federal land and it was traded for land near a Federal office building which was marked as District land. There were at least three swaps in SW that I knew of in the 12 years I lived there. Again, the City Council had to approve and the House subcommittee dealing with the District had to sign off on it, but, so far as I know, nothing more needed to be done as long as it was an equal swap.

fabrisse