Hail, New Columbia?: D.C. statehood, again - new fiscal responsibility in Washington, D.C. is expected to bring up the question of statehood

Few people outside the Beltway noticed it, but the District of Columbia went out of the red and into the black in January. Just five years ago, the D.C. government ran a deficit of more than a half-billion dollars and its bonds were rated junk. Congress created a federal control board to oversee the city, which seemed chronically unable to manage itself. Record keeping was so lousy that nobody knew exactly how much money the city took in, or how it was spent. Schools were shut down for fire-code violations. And then there was Mayor Marion Barry, a national joke.

The debate over statehood for D.C. went into hibernation. Nobody wanted to promote the idea while Barry was mayor and a control board essentially ran the local government. But now these obstacles are gone: Barry has been replaced by Anthony Williams, a pleasant-seeming man who wears bow ties and radiates competence; the control board effectively quit its role on February 7. The city is on the rebound, with surging tax receipts, a budget surplus, and a vibrant downtown. It's only a matter of time before statehood returns as a front-burner issue. In fact, the Democrats have a huge incentive to put it there right now, at this moment of heightened interest in voting rights and black disfranchisement, plus razor-thin margins in Congress. And they may be much closer to achieving D.C. statehood-or something akin to it-than is commonly believed.

The effort to win statehood for D.C. never ceased outright. In October, the Supreme Court affirmed a lower-court ruling against congressional representation for the city. In December, D.C. elector Barbara Lett- Simmons submitted a blank ballot when the Electoral College met, in protest of her city's lack of representation in Congress. On January 15, President Clinton entered the fray. "I believe that you should still have your votes in Congress and the Senate," he said to local leaders. "I think that, maybe even more important, you should have the rights and powers and responsibilities that statehood carries." Clinton, of course, did nothing as president to advance this cause- besides affixing the new D.C. license plate, featuring the statehood motto "Taxation Without Representation," to his presidential limousine in December. (President Bush removed it right after his inauguration.) It was all about symbolism; but Clinton's behavior may foreshadow a major Democratic campaign for D.C. statehood.

The case for statehood can be fairly compelling. The city's population is larger than that of Wyoming, and almost as large as those of Alaska, South Dakota, and Vermont. Residents are U.S. citizens: They pay taxes and fight wars for their country. The District is already treated like a state for hundreds of purposes, with the federal government and individual states recognizing its birth certificates and marriage licenses. It even has a flag, and a name ready in case statehood does come: New Columbia. Thanks to the Twenty-third Amendment, D.C. voters are allowed to participate in presidential elections, with three electoral votes. A national poll last year found 72 percent support for granting D.C. full representation in Congress. That's why the statehood debate carries so much appeal for many Democrats, who also rarely fail to notice that the city is about two-thirds black. Republican politicians are scarce, and there's no doubt the District would quickly send three liberals to Congress. (When the city created the office of "shadow senator" in 1990, voters elected Jesse Jackson.)

In 1993, Democrats gave House delegates-elected from the District and four U.S. territories-the right to vote on most floor activity. When the Republicans gained control two years later, they rescinded this rule. On February 13 of this year, D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton introduced a bill to bring it back; at least two Republicans, Reps. Tom Davis of Virginia and Connie Morella of Maryland, are supporters.

But there's a good reason the District doesn't already have full representation: The Constitution created a federal district "not exceeding ten miles square" that would be part of no state, and the Constitution makes clear that only states can elect members of Congress. D.C. was carved out of Maryland and Virginia, and supporters of D.C. voting rights like to point out that until 1800 residents of the District actually voted in those two states-though they usually fail to mention that this practice stopped when D.C. became the seat of government.

It is sometimes argued that only a constitutional amendment could grant statehood to the District, but this is far from certain. The District could shrink to a core area of federal buildings, and the rest would become New Columbia-admitted to the Union just like any other territory. Statehood may be achieved by statute or joint resolution in Congress.

From a political standpoint, that would be bad news for Republicans. In the short term, it would give the Democrats control of the Senate, and make the lousy outlook for the 2002 elections even lousier. In the long term, statehood would provide extra muscle to the big-government caucus, because the District is home to just one industry: the federal behemoth.