Q&A Friday #33: Should DC Become A State?

by John Hawkins | February 10, 2006 8:59 am

Question: “I have a question, John: What’s your position on statehood for the District of Columbia? I realize that might not be a question of great interest to everyone else but I’d love to have a conceptual framework within which to consider the constant whining and keening here in the DC area and I greatly respect your ability to identify and characterize the basic bones of contention in complex issues.” — Grognard

Answer: DC is just too tiny[1] to be a state. “DC has only 68 square miles of area. The smallest state, Rhode Island, has 1,231 square miles, and second-smallest Delaware has 2,396 square miles.”

Of course, in answer to that, proponents of statehood for DC tend to point out that it “has 567,000 people, while Wyoming has 493,000”. However, DC is only the 27th biggest city[2] in the US. You could make a much better case for making New York or LA its own state on that front.

The truth is that the real driving force behind these pushes to make DC a state is getting the Democrats another couple of seats in the Senate. If not for that, few people would care about making DC a state and those who did would be pushing to make DC part of Maryland instead of trying to acquire statehood.