A READER FROM DC WEIGHS IN ON DC STATEHOOD:

You are absolutely right on DC statehood. As a resident of the District since 1976 (and also in 1973-74), I am absolutely opposed to statehood. The Framers of the Constitution were aware of what happened to London during the Gordon riots of 1780 and didn’t want the federal government to be intimidated by mobs uncontrolled by local government. It’s sort of like they anticipated Marion Barry.

When statehood advocates first started making noises in the 1950s, the District, with 802,178 people in the 1950 Census, was larger than eight states. Today it is larger than just one state, Wyoming. It is one-sixth of a metropolitan area. Why should one-sixth of a metropolitan area be a separate state? (OK, you could say that Delaware is a smaller proportion of the Philadelphia Consolidated

Metropolitan Statistical Area; but who would create Delaware anew today?) . . .

No one is forced to live in the District of Columbia. Every adult who lives there knows they don’t live in a state. In the 1950s it could be argued that a lot of black people were forced to live in the District because they couldn’t buy houses in the Maryland or Virginia suburbs. Today they can. A majority of blacks in the Washington CSMSA live outside the District of Columbia.

Sorry for venting, but–please, please, don’t make me part of a state. I can move to Maryland or Virginia any time I want to. (Or better yet, establish a 183-day-a-year residence [elsewhere], in which case I would not have to pay the District’s 9 percent income tax.)

Yeah, I remember that income tax. But the sales tax was high, too!