More Washington, D.C. residents support statehood than ever before

Capitol Hill in Washington, DC
(Image credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

A new Washington Post poll of D.C. residents found that the District is more eager for statehood than ever. Three in four residents are unhappy the city does not have a voting member in Congress — thus the license plates that complain of "taxation without representation" — and 67 percent would like to see the District of Columbia become its own state:

This marks the greatest support for statehood on record. That push for independence is significantly connected to congressional control over the District, which 71 percent of Washingtonians say is excessive.

"We don't have any freedom," said Bracey Bullock, who has lived in D.C. for all of his 80 years. Bullock is bearish on the prospect of District statehood, noting that members of Congress enjoy "more say-so [in District law] than" in their own states, and those same representatives would have to approve local control.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.