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A growing and diversifying economy has 706,000 people living in the city, more than Vermont or Wyoming.
First vote by Congress for D.C. statehood lays the ground for next year
Jun 26 2020
The House has voted for the first time to rectify one of the most counterintuitive quirks of American democracy:
People living in the national capital have less of a voice in the national government than all the rest of the nation — consigned to the same second-class status, taxation without representation, which sparked the Revolution that created the country.
Legislation to change that, by making the District of Columbia the 51st state, was approved 232-180 on Friday, the only passage of such a statehood measure by either chamber in the history of Congress.
But the almost purely party-line tally in the Democratic House will be the proposal's symbolically resonant high-water mark, at least for the year. That's because the Republican Senate had made plain it has zero interest in the measure, even before President Trump made explicit this week that he would veto it.
<p>As a result, once they became confident of passage by the House, many proponents started focusing their attention on the coming election — working to raise money and organize not only for former Vice President Joe Biden, who has endorsed the bill, but also for his fellow Democrats in close Senate contests.</p><p>A Biden presidency combined with a still-blue House and newly Democratic Senate, especially one willing to drop the 60-vote filibuster test for legislation, could propel the measure into law next year.</p><p>"The ample resources of D.C. residents — both human and material — should be devoted to races most likely to elect or reelect women and men who believe residents of the District deserve the right to full participation in American democracy," columnist Colbert I. King wrote this week in the Washington Post.</p><p>Partisan politics have neutralized the drive for statehood for decades, but Democrats believe they may be able to capitalize over time on the antagonism the president and administration officials have shown the city during the coronavirus pandemic and the protests over police brutality and racial injustice.</p><p>The legislation would create "Washington, Douglass Commonwealth" (an homage to the abolitionist Frederick Douglass), guaranteeing the new state would be treated the same as the existing 50 with respect to federal aid and spending formulas — and its people could elect two senators and one representative.</p><p>Now home to more than 706,000, the city is more populous than Wyoming or Vermont. Rapid growth and gentrification, spurred mainly by the arrival of high-tech and other industries that thrive off federal contracts, has diversified the population and made it more prosperous than ever. District residents now pay more federal income tax per capita than the residents of any state, and D.C. provides more tax revenue to the federal government than 22 other states.</p><p>The population nonetheless remains almost three-fifths Black and Latino, a bigger majority than any state, a demographic fact that has made statehood part of the agenda of many civil rights groups.</p><p>The D.C. electorate is such a deep blue — the last seven GOP presidential nominees have averaged 8 percent of the vote — that it would be guaranteed to elect a pair of Democratic senators and make a fully-enfranchised House member out of the non-voting Democratic delegate.</p><p>"We stand out as the only democracy in the world that denies democracy to the people of its national capital, and it's long past time to change that," Eleanor Holmes Norton, who's had that job for three decades, said in concluding the debate for her bill, which got the designation HR 51.</p><p>Partisan lopsidedness has assured solid Republican opposition to statehood. But GOP members also say the new state would have an unfair sway over the federal government, that D.C. officials are not prepared for the extra responsibilities of statehood and that the measure would deny Congress its constitutional power over the nation's capital.</p><p>To address that, the bill would shrink the seat of the federal government to the two square miles that take in the Capitol, White House, Supreme Court and bulk of the city's federal buildings.</p><p>Statehood was supported by 86 percent of D.C. residents in a 2016 referendum. Three years earlier the city started signaling its displeasure with the status quo — which includes Congress having the power to veto local ordinances — by making "Taxation Without Representation" the logo on its license plates.</p><p>The campaign gained new urgency this spring because of how the city was affected by the coronavirus pandemic and the civil unrest.</p><p>Although the District had one of the highest infection rates early on, and the economic consequences of its sustained shutdown were severe, it received $750 million less than the smallest state under the pandemic recovery package enacted in March.</p><p>And then last month, without the city's consent or collaboration, Trump deployed federal law enforcement officers and National Guard troops across the city to repress protests after George Floyd's death in police custody.</p><p>"Statehood fixes it all," Mayor Muriel Bowser declared when the House announced debate on the bill.</p><p>The measure does not make clear who would pay the costs of becoming a state, however. The federal government, for example, might no longer feel obligated to provide more than $1 billion annually to fund Medicaid and much of the city's criminal justice system.</p><p>The last House vote on statehood was 27 years ago, when the municipal government was in a fiscal and ethical shambles. The bill got just 153 votes.</p>
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D.C. primary plagued with problems
Jun 03 2020
District of Columbia residents waited in long lines with poor social distancing to cast their primary ballots Tuesday in an election that took place amid concerns over the Covid-19 outbreak and Mayor Muriel Bowser's citywide curfew.
The elections in the overwhelmingly Democratic city were for national and local races. Results on Tuesday night indicated progressive Janeese Lewis George ousted moderate incumbent Brandon Todd, a close ally of Bowser, while voters also soundly rejected the scandal-ridden Jack Evans, who was aiming to reclaim the Ward 2 council chair he relinquished this January. In the Democratic presidential primary, Joe Biden cemented his place as the presumptive nominee with nearly 77 percent of the vote.
The D.C. Board of Elections had encouraged all eligible voters to use mail-in ballots, but many voters said they never received ballots or received them too late. When results were released, about 50,000 absentee ballots had been counted. In a post-election press release, the board said it received 91,000 requests for absentee ballots, which is far higher than the 6,000 requests it usually fills. Some voters were allowed to cast ballots in PDF form via email, but many showed up at polling centers eager to make their voices heard.
<p>"The demand was high, the chaos was significant and still now, there's confusion," said Reana Kovalcik, communications director for at-large Councilmember Elissa Silverman.</p><p>In a last-minute effort to get votes counted, Silverman's office forwarded email ballots from about 500 constituents, by its own estimate, to the board last night. Kovalcik described the voting method as "an extreme measure usually reserved for military overseas voters" but said the elections board had approved it as an option for those that did not receive a ballot in time.</p><p>However, frustrated voters across the city described waiting several hours in line at their polling places. Typical wait times of one to two hours ballooned to three, four and even five hours in some cases, with queues weaving around buildings and extending a few blocks.</p><p>"People were just walking away because they saw how long the line was," said John Walsh, who waited nearly five hours to vote in Columbia Heights.</p><p>Walsh eventually cast his ballot at 20 minutes past midnight, with about 70 people still behind him in line.</p><p>"There was a real lack of social distancing," added Walsh. "With that many people in one place, it's problematic."</p><p>Typically, there are 144 voting precincts throughout the District. Amid the Covid-19 outbreak, the Board of Elections had culled the number of polling places to just 20, with no more than three locations per ward. In some cases, this forced voters to travel further than they usually do.</p><p>Aaron Keyak and his family live in Foggy Bottom, near the campus of George Washington University. Keyak's usual polling site is at the Francis-Stevens School, a 10-minute walk from his place. Yesterday, he cast his ballot at One Judiciary Square, which is a half-hour car ride away.</p><p>"I have the ability to have my wife watch our child and the ability to leave work and stand for what amounted to over three hours in an attempt to vote," said Keyak.</p><p>"I was thinking about all of the voters who left the line and all the voters who are disenfranchised and didn't even show up," he continued. "Voting should not be this difficult."</p><p>Adding to the confusion last night, Bowser reimposed a citywide curfew for a third consecutive night in response to protests over the murder of George Floyd, an African-American man in Minnesota. The curfew began at 7 p.m., but polls closed at 8 p.m., raising major concerns that the heavy police presence around the city would deter many residents planning to pay a last-minute visit to their polling place.</p><p>On the way to his polling place, Keyak saw Humvees on the street and officers in full body armor.</p><p>"I was in San Francisco after 9/11 and I remember walking around downtown San Francisco," he said. "This was a much different feel and it's how I imagine a war zone would feel like."</p><p>In an emergency alert sent to the mobile phones of all residents, Mayor Bowser had announced "individuals who are voting or participating in election activities" would be exempt from the curfew, but there was little clarity on how police would enforce the rule. Before the curfew went into effect, Metropolitan Police Department Chief Peter Newsham told reporters that people would be credentialed after 7 p.m. However, voters do not need to carry credentials with them and only need to provide valid proof of residence in the District in order to cast their ballot.</p><p>Poll workers assured those voting after curfew that their "I Voted" stickers would serve as ample evidence of why they were not in their homes, but many voters took to social media noting many cops did not seem aware of the policy.</p><p>Describing the scene at the vote center in One Judiciary Square, George Washington University student and D.C. elected official James Harnett said: "Two patrol cars [] turned their speakers on people waiting in line: "The Mayor has declared a 7 PM curfew! Go home!" MPD Officer on scene to monitor the election frantically tried to wave them down to get them to stop, but failed. Voters very confused."</p>
<div id="24299" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="351d5b3366cfbb5fa8ba58adbd7b53ae"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1268001215255846913" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">Nope. Two patrol cars at One Judiciary Square turned their speakers on people waiting in line: “The Mayor has decla… https://t.co/eWOps0Av2o</div> — James Harnett (@James Harnett)<a href="https://twitter.com/jarharnett/statuses/1268001215255846913">1591150022.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p>Many people, including city council members, expressed concerns that the rushed and haphazard enforcement of the curfew would effectively disenfranchise people of color from the vote.<br/></p><p>"This was our first time voting in D.C.," said Cathryn Paul, a 26-year-old Deanwood resident who went to the polls with her fiance.</p><p>"I've been voting in Maryland and always had a pretty great experience," said Paul. "I know we're in the middle of a pandemic, but this was pretty intense."</p><p>Deanwood, a two-square-mile neighborhood east of the Anacostia River, is a majority-black community and Paul and her fiance are both African-American. The couple left their house to vote 20 minutes after the curfew was imposed and stood in line with over 400 people, eventually casting their ballots after midnight. </p><p>"A lot of organizers have made it really clear: you can't just protest, you have to vote as well," said Paul. "It was pretty unbearable that first hour, but there was this sense of shared injustice for waiting so long that kind of prompted all the people in line [to stay and vote]."</p><p>The duo made friends with fellow voters, shared Twitter feeds from the protests happening around the city and held "robust conversations" on the issues that had brought them to the voting booth that day. A nurse in scrubs relayed her concerns to the group about the lack of leadership shown in response to Covid-19.</p><p>"There was definitely a serious desire to be present and to vote," said Paul, referring to the community spirit on display. "Because it was the last day and we have no other options, there's too much at stake for us not to be involved."</p>
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Poll workers in Bloomington, Ind., wear face shields and hand gloves as precautions against Covid-19 during Tuesday's primary votting.
Tuesday’s voting delivers big warnings about readiness for fall
Jun 03 2020
Major worries expressed by election officials and good-government groups all came true on the biggest day of voting since the coronavirus pandemic shut down much of the country: absentee ballots that were never delivered, long lines for those who voted in person and results that have not been fully tabulated a day later.
At the same time, records were broken Tuesday in several states for turnout in a primary, with citizens seemingly determined to cast their ballots despite the extraordinary circumstance of holding elections during both a deadly pandemic and a time of violent civil unrest.
The principal takeaway is that plenty of work needs to be completed and improvements made in just five months, or else the country may not be able to conduct a safe and reliable presidential election — and potentially one with record turnout.
<p>Voters went to the polls in eight states and the District of Columbia to choose nominees for congressional and local offices and to push former Vice President Joe Biden toward the cusp of securing the Democratic nomination to challenge President Trump. </p><p>All the states encouraged as many people as possible to vote remotely and mail back their ballots well in advance, and several of them buttressed that request by relaxing rules for requesting, completing and tabulating absentee ballots. </p><p>The results proved so successful that in some states the share of people voting by mail soared by an order of magnitude, or more, from recent primaries. The increase meant, however, that election officials were so overburdened by the incoming ocean of paper that they made clear they would not be able to tabulate the results in time to announce winners on election night — and maybe not for a few days</p><p>Officials at <a href="http://thefulcrum.us/votesafe" target="_self">VoteSafe</a>, a new bipartisan initiative working to make elections safe and accessible, said Wednesday that this round of voting showed that for the fall election officials need to make sure absentee ballots are sent out earlier, that plenty of polling stations will still be needed — and that election officials need to be better prepared to count record numbers of absentee ballots.</p><p>"At least one result is clear already though," the group said. "Voters want choices in how they vote including secure absentee ballots and safe in-person voting locations. We can deliver that in November, and we must."</p><p>Here are snapshots of what happened in this week's elections around the country:</p><h3>District of Columbia</h3><ul class="ee-ul"><li>The city opened just 20 polling places, not the usual 143, and as a result <a data-linked-post="2646151851" href="https://thefulcrum.us/dc-primary-2020" target="_blank">hundred of voters were standing in line for as long as three hours</a> after the polls closed at 8 p.m., an hour after a citywide curfew had begun.</li><li>About 90,000 absentee ballots were requested, 15 times the usual number, and there were signs many thousands were not delivered in time. One city council member was encouraging people who had not received their absentee ballots to vote via email — something sure to spark worries by security experts.</li></ul><h3>Indiana </h3><ul class="ee-ul"><li>The state said 546,000 people requested absentee ballots, 10 times the number two years ago, after the government abandoned the usual excuse requirements in light of the coronavirus outbreak.</li><li>By midday Wednesday, less than one-third of the precincts in statewide races had been counted.</li></ul><h3>Iowa</h3><ul class="ee-ul"><li>Ironically, the state where the first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses had been such a disaster in February appeared to have the least problems, with complete results available. A turnout record of 487,000 votes for a primary election was set, in part because the state sent absentee ballot applications to every registered voter.</li></ul><h3>Maryland</h3><ul class="ee-ul"> <li>Long lines were reported even though, for example, 95 percent of the votes in the Republican presidential primary were cast by mail.</li><li>Results from the city of Baltimore were pulled from the state website after a mistake was discovered in the ballot</li></ul><h3>Montana</h3><ul class="ee-ul"><li>Competitive primaries for both parties' nominations for governor drew more than 57 percent turnout, at or near a record for a primary in the state. All 56 counties chose to conduct their primaries almost entirely by mail after Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock gave his permission.</li><li>As of Wednesday, 87 percent of the precincts had been counted.</li></ul><h3>New Mexico</h3><ul class="ee-ul"><li>About 250,000 of the 400,000 votes cast were absentee ballots. And the surge (only 23,000 mailed votes were counted in the 2016 primary) was so strong at the last minute that the county elections boss in Albuquerque sent his staff home before midnight, the counting resuming in the morning. </li><li>Still, in-person voting was higher than expected. State GOP Chairman Steve Pearce said that some people who had requested absentee ballots voted in person instead because they were worried their absentee ballots would not arrive in time at election offices to be counted.</li></ul><h3>Pennsylvania</h3><ul class="ee-ul"><li>Final results will not be known until next week, state election officials told the Associated Press, in part because state officials made last-minute decisions to allow ballots mailed by the time the polls closed in eight urban and suburban counties to be counted if they arrived as long as a week later. </li><li>Demonstrations against police brutality, combined with changed rules because of public health concerns, were the reason. In Philadelphia, for example, 70 percent of the polling places were closed because of unrest downtown — including 18 consolidated at the convention center, which was in an area where cars had been barred.</li><li>The delayed results included determining the nominees in four highly competitive congressional districts. "We're accustomed to knowing more results from around the commonwealth on primary night, but since this is the first time we have vote-by-mail on this scale, it's important to remember that an accurate count is far more important than a quick count," state Democratic Party Chairwoman Nancy Patton Mills said.</li></ul><h3>Rhode Island<br></h3><ul class="ee-ul"> <li>Election officials are still at work Wednesday counting ballots, and it may be several more days until they finish.</li><li>So many people requested vote-by-mail ballots that they all didn't arrive in time to be mailed back so state officials decided to provide secure boxes to every community where ballots could be dropped.</li></ul><h3>South Dakota</h3><ul class="ee-ul"><li>Turnout was about 25 percent with almost 90 percent of the precincts counted. Nearly five times as many absentee ballots were cast during the primary than in the 2016 primary.</li><li>As a result of the push for voting by mail, turnout at in-person voting sites seemed minimal. Halfway through Tuesday, the downtown library in Sioux Falls, the state's largest city, had seen just 14 voters. On a normal election day, 150 have voted there before work.</li></ul>
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Democracy Madness: Top-seeded 'best of the rest' dominate the last Elite Eight
May 21 2020
The top seven seeds have all made it through to the Elite Eight round in the "Best of the Rest" division of Democracy Madness — our tournament where readers are deciding which of 64 ideas for fixing the government they want most.
The only minor upset in the opening round of our final quarter: The notion of conducting more extensive audits of election results, our ninth seed, barely snuck past the idea of creating federal standards for all voting machines, slotted eighth.
Now it's time to whittle it down to four. The voting lasts until Sunday night.
<p>Will using nothing but paper ballots (No. 1) get by those post-election audits? Will providing a steady flow of federal funding for elections (No. 2) best a demand for Congress to spend more time in Washington (No. 7)? Does Congress need more capacity (No. 3) or should kids spend more time learning about civics (No. 6)? Want the District of Columbia to be the 51st state (No. 4) or a code of ethics for the Supreme Court (No. 5)?</p><p>These are the questions that await you in this round of the bracket. Which one will join the other three bracket champions who readers have already sent to the Democracy Madness Final Four?</p><p>Click "Vote Now" to make your four choices. (You can click the matchups, then each label, for more on the proposals.)</p><p><br/></p><div class="rm-embed embed-media"></div><div class="rm-embed embed-media"><script defer src="https://cdn.commoninja.com/sdk/latest/commonninja.js"></script><div class="commonninja_component" comp-id="af9104fc-da45-4a1e-81c8-d43f12c7e538" comp-type="bracket"></div></div>
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