>> let me call this meeting toorder or convention to order. i'm phil mendelson, chairman ofthe council and cochair of the commission. and with me is mayor murielbowser, who is also cochair of the commission and senator paulstrauss, senator michael brown and representative franklingarcia. let me begin by saying goodevening to all of you. [ applause ] this is the second of three daysof this convention, and we are
going to begin this day or thisevening the same as we began monday night, and that is wewill have the presentation of colors followed by the nationalanthem to be sung by lauren kayla holland who i understandis a student at wilson and then we will recite the pledge ofallegiance. so if we could have thepresentation of colors, please. [national anthem] >> i pledge allegiance to theflag of the united states of america.
and to the republic for which itstands. one nation, under god,indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> i want to thank the honorguard and again i want to thank all of you for attending thisevening. we will proceed with briefopening statements from each of the commissioners here. mayor bowser, do you haveanything you want to say? >> i will reserve my time,chairman.
>> all right. senator strauss? >> thank you, mr.â chairman. we just pledged allegiance to aflag that has no star on it for us. one nation. indivisible. and yet, wesit separate without the rights of your fellow citizens.
it's an honor today to be witha distinguished group of citizens and a distinguishedpanel. we gather today in this highschool auditorium in a city with many fine buildings madeof marble that symbolized because high school auditoriumsare around any part of our country, except the kids thatgo to this high school, have to do so knowing that they live ina city in a community that doesn't enjoy the same rightsas high school students that sit in auditoriums just likethis around the country.
i can't think of a moreappropriate location to give us the seriousness of our purposeto bring about the change that we need and give us the qualitythat we deserve, and i was proud to pledge of allegianceto that flag, even if it doesn't have a star for us yet,because it's time that we have that star, but i'm also saddento note that that flag now sits at half-mast, once again, somesay because of policies that we in the district of columbiacan't adequately debate when the united states senate that iwas elected to represent by
fellow citizens convenes, soi'm glad to be here tonight. we have a lot of work to do,but we gather for an important purpose, and i want to thankall of the delegates who have come out tonight as one of ourspeakers is fond of saying, the most important title in ademocracy isn't senator or mayor or chairman, it'scitizen, and as american citizens, we're here to claimthe rights that we deserve. thank you. >> thank you, senator strauss.
senator brown. i'll be brief, because tonightis really about getting input from you, but let me follow upon what senator strauss said, that lovely rendition we heardfrom that young lady from wilson high school, that was asong written by a washingtonian, francis scott,who wrote a people that became part of our "national anthem"and we have been america since america began. today, the senateappropriations committee passed
the 2017 budget with a rider onit to block the referendum for budget autonomy passedoverwhelmingly by the citizens of the district of columbia. statehood is the only remedyfor us. it's only statehood that makesus whole and statehood that makes us equal, so now is thetime for us to get rid of this political albatross around ourneck. we heard we're two months intothis process. we heard from many people thatthe process is not perfect and
that they have problems withsome of the provisions of the constitution. i agree. the process is not perfect, butlet's not kill the good in search of the perfect. we need to get this done. we need to get it on theballot. we need to make our demand tocongress and we need to become the 51st state.
this is the time to do it.we have a president that says i'm for it. we have two major politicalcandidates who have shown their support in bernie sanders as acosponsor of the newâ columbia statehood act and my candidatehillaryâ clinton says she will fight for you if she's elected. this is our time. let's keep our eye on that andkeep moving on this process and we get this done.
>> thank you, senator. representative garcia. >> thank you, mr.â chairman.on tuesday, you all went and voted. we had a great celebration ofdemocracy, so i want to thank you all for coming out andvote, and sunday, i hope that i can actually return the favorthat you did by voting for me and go out into the house ofrepresentatives and vote on your behalf.
so i want to alsoâ --â last time,we paid a moment of silence to the people of orlando, and aswe see the difficult task of bearing the people now, wecontinue to have our thoughts and prayers with the victimsand the families of those people. i want to also thank and firstcongratulate the people that got elected and congratulatesome of the activists, like kate and keith, they were veryactive in this process and also thank for the signs in the cityso more people can come out.
i've never come out to thisauditorium, and i didn't realize it was this big, sohopefully tomorrow, i attended a graduation yesterday and theprincipal of the school committed to bringing some ofthe students here tomorrow, so hopefully, tomorrow, we'll havea much larger crowd. thank you very much. i'm very excited to be here. >> thank you representative,garcia, and i neglected to thank the wilson jazz band,
which was excellent. they might actually be betterthan us up here, but we'll see. i have an agenda and we werefollowing the agenda and there should be copies of the agendafor everybody. in a moment, i'll recognize ourparlimentarian to explain the rules of engagement followed bya panel discussion with five individuals. then omarosa manigault followedby testimony and discussion, which is important for all ofus, so there should be a lot of
time for that before weconclude and we will reconvene tomorrow morning in this samespace, so let me now recognize our parlimentarian john balkerwho will i believe explain the rules of engagement. >> thank you very much and goodevening. mayor bowser, chairmanmendelson and fellow delegates. i am a partner at the partnerof fox and most importantly, a proud parent of a wilson tiger. it's my honor and privilege toserve on the mayor's d.c.
statehood legal advisory teamand act as your parlimentarian this evening. the legal advisory team is madeup of law professors, public interest lawyers, governmentlawyers from the offices of the mayor, the council, theattorney general, as well as lawyers from the privatesector. our charge has been to advisethe commission with respect to crafting a draft and let merepeat, draft constitution for d.c. residents to review andpropose amendments.
the work has been govern bidthe following guiding principals, first opromotestability to build on the statehood efforts in the 80sbut simplify and modernize the constitutions developed then,three, to establish structures needed for good government,four, to empower the legislature and executive togovern in the interest of the people who elect them, five, toproduce orderly and responsible governance and reflect theviews of the d.c. residents and that the district meritscongressional is presented as a
state to building on theseprinciples, they adopted the process for approval of thisconstitution. on may 6th, the commissionreleased the draft constitution and widely disseminated it,including online and in every public library in the districtof columbia. the commission has solicitedinput from d.c. residents in town hall meetings, commentsposted directly to the commission's web site, throughvarious committees set up by the commission and throughdirect contact by d.c.
residents and of course,through convention that we're participating in right now. and the commission heardtestimony on monday in historic anacostia and we'll hear moretestimony during this evening's session and at the conincludingsession. thus far, the commission hasreceived close to 300 comments, all of which are published onthe commission's web site for public to view. the commission will consideramendments to the draft
constitution in a publicmeeting at a date to be noticed shortly. the commission will then voteto approve the constitution and submit it to the council byjune 30th. the council will then considerand approve a referendum resolution which will be sentto the board of elections no later than july 8th and it willbe put before all of us voters on election day, tuesday,november 8th and that resolution will ask voters toapprove four elements required
for admission to the union andin conjunction with the so-called tennessee plan. first, we will approve the willof the residents of the district of columbia to supportstatehood, second, the approval of the amended constitution,three, approval of the boundaries of the new state andfour, our desire to embrace a representative small democraticform of government. once this is approved the mayorand the council will final the package for submission no thenew president and new congress
after they take office injanuary. okay, so that's the process.let me very quickly ruin through the rules of engagementthis evening. this religious is nonpartisanand attendees must respect all views. decorum will be upheld at alltimes. the commisioners of the newcolumbia statehood commission will direct each session anddiscuss the topic and look at article 2, the executivebranch, article 4, borrowing
and other topics are welcomed,as well. most importantly, all d.c.residents are deemed to be delegates. you all have your badges andhave the right to participate testimony will follow the rulesestablished in the public engagement process approved bythe statehood commission and will generally follow the waythe council receives testimony. three minutes for individualsto testify and five minutes for organizations.
an individual can only testifyonce perfect session to allow as many folks to testify aspossible, and most importantly, all comments will be givenequal weight for review by the commission no matter whatmedium you choose, so for example, online testimony willbe given the same weight as testimony received heretonight. the ultimate decision onautomatic amendments and comments will be that of thenewâ columbia statehood commission by a majority voteand final constitution will be
on the november 8th ballot. those are the rules ofengagement and i hope you have a productive and excitingconvention. >> thank you, mr.â balker, so,again, tonight is when we get to public comment the focus ison article 2, the executive branch, article 4, budget andfinancial management and article 5, borrowing. the five members of thecommission is compromised of five members to the five of ussitting here, the two senators,
the representative, the mayorand i are cochairs of the we're now goingto turn to the panel discussion let me say before we all getup, because the panel will be here and this is to discuss thepolitical implementation and have ramifications not onlyhere in the district of columbia and congress with thenew president and across the country. to kick things off, we willhave as our panel moderator, a person who is no stranger tothe political, the host of
"meet the press" and thepolitical editor of nbc news, mr.â chuck todd. [applause]. >> i will quickly introduce thepanel, two of which, they weren't supposed to leave yet,but that's all right. you can come back. chairmanâ mendelson, of course,mayor bowser, both are going to be on this panel. i don't think they need anyintroduction here, but also
joining us in this conversationis george vradenburg, a former executive vice president withaol time warner, a member of the board economic club ofwashington d.c. and a long time republican, as well, and jamieraskin, of course, a maryland state senatorâ --â >> and now the democraticnominee for congress right across the border over here in maryland, so c'mon up. and iwant to try to organize the conversation a little bit insort of try to do this in a
couple of ways, in thearguments against and for this. mayor bowser, let me start withyou. you have a specific way youwant to do this. you want to try to do this in away, i guess, avoids a national constitutional amendmentprocess. explain. >> well, first, chuck, we wantto thank you for paying attention to local washingtond.c., and i just did chuck's show "meet the press daily" andalready people from across the
country are calling theirfriends in d.c.-- >> it was a pleasant surprise. i got more fiscal impact. >> you can keep doing it. that is what we found in thelast few weeks is is a statehood is gaining momentum,and this is not just a conversation to have in wilsonhigh school or washington d.c., but we have to touch all 50states, so our congresswoman for many, many years has beensubmitting a piece of
legislation to get d.c.statehood. the idea that we have to changethe constitution to get d.c. statehood is not right. states can be admitted by asimple vote of the congress, and the piece of legislationthat she has circulated is still there and active. we wanted to be on theoffensive, however, and we wanted to put the district inthe position. if the political wins, go theway that we like, and we
already know that a newcongress is going to have jamie raskin already. that's an improvement already,and so we have the opportunity to have a new president and anew congress, and this time, if things, you know, work out, itmay not this time but maybe the next time, but we will havepulled together a contemporary conversation about statehood,the boundaries, the constitution and a new vote,and that's the way we're going to proceed.
>> chairmanâ mendelson, i don'twant to assume that this can't be done, but let me ask youthis, do you think this renewed effort is a way to at leastmaybe at a minimum, it will force republicans in congressto support budget autonomy? >> i certainly hope so. i mean, we have to keeppressing this effort, that's the bottom line, we have tokeep pressing it. we can sit back and do nothingand wait for what the opportune wins are or what the opportuneslook like.
we know in the near future,we'll have a new congress and a new president, and we reallyought to seize this opportunity now to press forward ratherthan waiting any longer. surely, there will be somechallenges, you know, what is going on with budget autonomy ifind really discouraging in the sense that there's no goodreason why the republicans in congress would be trying torepeal what we adopted lawfully with regard to budget autonomy,and i emphasize good, there's no good reason.
there may be a reason, i thinkit's kind of mean. >> i heard chairman meadowswith this but it seems you've taken a step back and have beenmore open with the republican chair, isa and davis? >> there is a long support ofbudget autonomy with the republican committee chair. part of the reason they give isthat somehow this is unconstitutional and if budgetautonomy is unconstitutional, that is the district would havethe legislative authority to
dock budget, than[indiscernable] because over two seasonal temperatures,congress has delegated one from a government or another to thedistrict it's mean-spirited what they're doing because wehave shown we can run the city well, and congress has shownover the last 20 years that increasingly, they have nointerest in running this city. there's no longer districtcommittee to go to if we want to talk our budget, theyhaven't passed our budget and time, i think, since 1994 ontime, before the fiscal year.
they haven't changed a singlecent since the control board went away. when you look at issues thatother jurisdictions are struggling with, such as thepension, we are the best in the country...the best in thecountry in terms of our retirement being fully fundedas well as with another benefit funded. we have surpluses year afteryear and running a financially well run city, but we know thatit costs us money to not have
budget autonomy. it costs us money and depressesour credit slightly on wall street so we pay more when weborrow, the delays in the budget, means we have to borrowmoney. there are a whole host ofdisadvantages to the current process and congress should bestepping aside, because they have left the field and let usrun things, and if they don't like something, not that i wantto invite this but they have plenty of authority.
>> george, you're here to helpmake the argument to your fellow republicans why theyshouldn't be afraid of d.c. statehood, so what's theargument? >> well, i think the firstargument, is it's the right thing to do. i mean, you start with theproposition. i'm a proponent of a verystrong national defense. we have kids from the districtof columbia going to fight for the right to vote for people inbaghdad and they now have a
right to vote and we don't. what kind of irony is that soyou think from a republican point of view, after all, weare the party of lincoln, we did participate in the votingrights act of '65, so we have a history of supporting the rightthing. this is sort of unfinishedbusiness, i think, on the voting rights. >> the big argument is two bigdemocratic senators. >> so the question is, okay, ad.c. republican, i think it's
essential we develop acompetitive d.c. republican party, and i think with acompetitive d.c. republican party through time that, infact, you would, in fact, find republican support. this is a long game. right now, if there are twosenators in this district, there are two more democraticsenators, but in order to build a strong republican party, withcareer opportunities for public service for republicans in thisdistrict to get both offices
either at the city level or thestate level or at the federal level, there are greateropportunities, i believe, for republicans and, in fact, theissue pallet with which we'll deal with the national defenseand taxation issues, all the issues we all share but we allhave one voice, that's the democratic voice, so we need ad.c. republican party, but this is a long game, not a shortgame. >> jamie, you're vying torepresent maryland in congress and one of the alternativeideas that gets thrown out when
they talk about the district ofcolumbia's lack of voting rights, is retro section, sowhy is that not a good idea? >> first, let me say thank youto mayor bowsers, chairmanâ mendelson and thecommission for inviting me to be part of the proceedings anddelighted to be here. that's my kind of republicanright there. so let's start with this,that's a question for the will of the people who live in thedistrict of columbia, and to go back to how mayor bowserstarted, we should understand
there is nothing remotelyunusual about the process that the newâ columbia petition istaking. the only way that any state hasever been admitted to union is by congressional passage ofstatehood legislation. there have been 37 statesadmitted since the original 13. all of them came in with directenactment, under that, and under the district clause,which comes to haunt the people of district of columbia, thatgives congress the power under article 1, section 8, clause 17and to district the seat of
government so there is a doublepower that congress has to admit to admit a new state. now, you're right that theportions of the district of columbia they were retro seatedto virginia and arlington, that is a political question for thepeople of the district of columbia and the people ofmaryland, if that's another way that people want to go.it's not a crazy suggestion, i think, but i don't know thatthere are any examples of a people rejoining a state theyused to be part of.
usually, people create a newstate, well, i guess virginia is an example from arlingtonand washington, and they would have the mayor and the counciland the local home rule government like baltimore, butthat's not what the people are asking for. people are asking for admissionas a state and there are lots of states that have beenadmitted like vermont used to be part of new york and maineused to be part ofâ --â and lots of states used to be part ofvirginia, that's up to the
people to decide and let mejust say, i think i was invited by the mayor because i'm aprofessor of constitution law and taken real interest in thesubject of equal voting rights and democracy but here as amarylander and when people are fighting for equal democraticrights, i want to be on their side. [applause] >> i've seen many a democraticpresidential candidate for whatever the two ways areappropriate to say it, we'll
say are for d.c. statehood andthey make a great proclamation and then it disappears. do you believe thathillaryâ clinton is different this time, that her support forit is, you know, she's going to work for it? >> well, actually, yes, i do.and i think the secretary gave a full endorsement ford.c.â statehood and did not use parse words which others would. she said she would supportd.c.â statehood.
secretary clinton knows d.c.and she's been here and when she and president clinton werein the white house, they were supportive in a lot of ways oflocal washington, so i do think she is going to be supportive. she also mentioned, and sherecognizes that it's not enough to just say it, that it's goingto take active and vocal participation to get it done,and so i feel very strongly that the secretary will bethere and be supportive and we'll stay focused on this,because we have to be vigilant
on these issues. some of us went a couple ofweeks to the dnc platform meeting where i gave astatement about statehood. statehood has not been in thedemocratic platform for the last two cycles and that wehave to change. >> how did that happen? >> i don't know. >> so the last two cycles, thatplatform committee was controlled by barack obama.
>> it didn't happen, and we'renot happy about it, and so this is why we have made itâ --â wewant to call to everybody's attention and hold everybodyaccountable, the candidate, all of us, our congressionaldelegate that we have to be vigilant about keeping it inthe platform. and i say that because thecandidate has control of the dnc and we had a member of theplatform committee come, and she wasn't as clear as thesecretary was, so for all of us, we're going to reach out tothe members of the platform
committee, representatives ofboth candidates, senator sanders, who has beensupportive as mentioned, has a lot of members on that platformcommittee, and we also want to reach out to them so they'revery clear thatting â --â voting representation is not whatwe're talking about. >> district of columbiachildren and youth investment corporation, when i asked himabout statehood, he seemed open to it and semijoked, if theylove my hotel, then great, so maybe you can use the postoffice as leverage.
>> wish we could. >> but can he be persuaded forstatehood? he seems non-committal, whichis better than other republicans? >> well, let's see how muchpaul ryan and mitch mcconnell get under his skin. he may try to punish them. he's a disrupter andunpredictable and it's the answer is we don't know, wereally don't know.
there's quite a few things ofwhere he's going. >> we're all learning thatevery day. >> but he is a disruptive forceand if, in fact, he really wants to get under therepublicans' and the congress' skin, this would be the kind ofthing that would blow their minds apart, that he wouldsupport democratic senators, but i would tell you, i don'tknow if this is a matter of persuasion, a matter ofrational. to some extent, it may be anargument about the right thing,
but i do think that it's morelikely that it's going to come about as an emotional reactionto something that republicans in congress do. >> i'm curious, and jamie, youdropped your constitutional law credentials here, so let me askyou this, could there be a court order remedied here? you can make a case, but therights of american citizens are being taken away andconstitutional rights, is there a way in?
>> well, this has occurred tome before, and i did, there was an article that said itviolated equal protection, one person, one vote, but theanswer that we got in the anderson versus dailylitigation where adams versus clinton, the companion case, a2-1 decision written by judge garner, and the district saidit may not be fair. it may not be democratic, butthe denial of representation in congress is constitutional,because article 1 calls only for representation of thepeople of the states and the
people that live in thedistrict are not part of a state, to whichâ --â what weargued was that, first of all, the district used to be part ofa state, the people who live in the district of columbia arepart of land that was here when the country was founded. we are founded, we the peoplewhen the constitution was written and congress has thepower to treat the district as a state, in fact, if you readthrough federal statutes, the district were explicitlytreated as a state for hundreds
of purposes, military,inscription, and so on and so forth. the majority in that decisionfound that the language of article one should be readstrictly and the 17th amendment providing for direct electionof u.s. senators by the people, the state should allow onlypeople that belong to states proper, states that have beenadmitted to the union, so the district are left outside ofthe state-based constitutional combat like people that live inthe territories.
the territories have beentreated as states in the waiting and the districtsomething kind of outside the structure, and the problempolitically is states have been admitted like animals boardingnoah's ark in twos, in pairs, hawaii and nebraska andnebraska and so on, and the people live here don'tnecessarily have a partner. >> puerto rico. >> that could be a partner. i think it comes back to therepublican party.
i don't want to be too partisanabout it, but, you know, to invoke our last greatrepublican president, abraham lincoln, who spoke of thegovernment of the people by the people, for the people, i thinkthat lincoln would be upset about this situation. you know, i'm reading cindybloomenthal's book on lincoln, and he focuses that he cut histeeth in the political battles before the civil war fightingfor the abolition of slave travel in the district ofcolumbia as did john quincy
adams. lincoln felt very stronglyabout that. you know, the whole country wasdivided whether there should be slavery in the district. the slave states were able toimpose a gag rule that you couldn't talk about slavery inthe southern states. you can say that is a federalissue but a state issue, but that is why the slave trafficin d.c. became such a hot topic and abolitionists were pushinghard for.
that and lincoln championed theidea of freedom that this should be a capital that standsfor freedom and democracy, and i imagine he would be sayingthe exact same thing today. >> chairmanâ mendelson, what isthe best argument outside of because of the constitutionalaspect of this, what's the best argument against statehood thatyou've heard? you ever heard one? >> against statehood? >> you have to know thearguments, right?
if you heard of something thatyou thought, that is fair point. the constitution to me is thebiggest hurdle. >> i'm not sure what i can saywhat is the best argument. i heard arguments like, youknow, the district runs on federal money, which isincorrect. our budget is 76%â --â trying toremember, i looked at the numbers earlier today.we get federal fund payments and everybody else getsmedicaid, so there is nothing
unique to the district. the federal payment isâ .2% ofour budget. i mean, it's really small, sothat's not a good argument. we're too democrat. actually, mark placken used toquote this, the three 2 toos, too black, too democrat and toourban. there's no principal. >> those are politicalarguments. >> right.
>> one could argue we'regeographically too small, but we're entitled to the samerights and responsibilities to the citizens of the unitedstates, which are the citizens of the united states. >> george, what do you say isthe toughest thing. >> it's all political. >> there's nothingconstitutional. >> jamie made a strong argumentfor constitution, that is at least a close issue, if not onethat leans in our favor.
there's something odd abouthaving a state and a state maryland â --â militiaâ --â [indiscernable]. >> the national guard marchingon west wing avenue. >> the people pointed out thefederal government's presence in a lot of jurisdictions isgreat and somehow, the governors have not taken overfederal property in other areas, so i think that is ananomalist argument that may be 200 years old.
i don't think this is a goodargument, after all, i'm a republican taxpayer, but thegovernment doesn't seem to treat my green backs anydifferent and i don't have the ability to determine whetherthat should go to discretionary spending, to the military orwhatever. there is something in mylibertarian flood that there is something fundamentally wrongwith that. [indiscernable] we fought aboutthis for a long time and we won, but we didn't win.
it was strange. >> chuck, can i just addsomething. so a couple of years ago, ithought maybe there was a good argument for statehood in thefederalist paper, so i looked for extensive discussion aboutdisfriend franchising the residents of the district ofcolumbia, and there is no discussion. the constitution talks aboutsetting up this district but talked about fordisenfranchising.
i didn't know there were anyclosed door discussions but the population in 1790 was lessthan the washington metropolitan region today. and so whatever they venuevision being the federal district, and i'm not sure theyknew for sure. >> they didn't think peoplewould be full-time residents? >> i don't think so. >> they thought they would comehere when government was in session and then go home?
>> and i don't think they knewduring the national democratic convention, they would be inthe potomac, but the city of georgetown and alexandria andthat we don't have the same rights and responsibilitieseven though we send our sons and daughters to war and paytaxes. >> mayor bowser, explain thenew federal district that you've outlined here? give us the geographic outlinesand what would happen to people that lived in that new federaldistrict, or would you make
sure that they didn't? >> well, we had on the firstday of the convention, the office of planning game andmade a presentation and with a new set of boundaries. there was a set of boundariesdrawn up in the 80s, and the significant difference aroundthat is we have actually incorporated in this set ofboundaries more federal, what had been considered federalland including the joint base at bowling.
there was also anotherecodistrict that was set up and excluded from newâ columbia andhas been included. so we largely have the mallarea, the white house and the capital all the way to thesupreme court with the exception of one building andthat is our building, the johnâ a.â wilson building, and wehave the proposed boundaries tonight include any currentresidential area-- >> the congressmen are sleepingin their office. >> and the president.
>> so let me ask this, george,what would be some pitfalls, political pitfalls in theconstitution that you would recommend to your friends onthe panel here not to include or be careful of the you wantto continue to sort of make progress with congress? >> well, jamie is my kind ofconstitutional professor. i think i would ask jamie thatquestion. >> i know the mayor has beenvery passionate about this, about limiting the number ofpartisan statements in this
constitution? >> that's an interestingquestion, and i applaud the effort to streamline theconstitution and make it, you know, a fighting document thatdoesn't include everything that everybody wants for otherpurposes. there's a lot of time for a newstate to develop its own policies on this or that issue. i think if you're thinkingabout partisanship, you want to make sure that the structure ofthe constitution is designed in
such a way that it will be opento real partisan competition. i haven't scrutinized itclosely, but when the election of the at large councilmembers,no more they know two from any one political party, which, youknow, has been the source of election for independence andstatehood people and so on, so i took a quick look at it. i don't think that is in thereand that would be a very unusual thing. and there are federalconstitutional questions about
that kind of provision, on theother hand, there are lots of ways, if you talk to my friendsat fair vote, for example, in the 8th congressional district,there are a lot of ways to build in competition in modesof body through instant runoff voting, instant transferablevote, cumulative voting. there are ways to make sure youdon't get a monolithic one party control over alegislature, and of course, that would be unusual, notunconstitutional but unusual if everybody that got elected fora state came from one party, so
the newâ columbia could modelthe best, most up to date mechanisms of making surethere's real electoral competition and vitality byusing those methodologies of voting. >> i would applaud that and iwould suggest that it is healthy for district to have arival party that competes for votes of the district. it's not exactly as if arepublican in the district is going to look like a republicanfrom louisiana.
they have to be progaymarriage, strong on the enforcement ofanti-discrimination law. there is no question that arepublican in this district may have different views innational defense or a variety of other subjects, but toappeal to the voters of the district and get the votes ofbeing a senator or congress person, it seems that you wantsome competition, and it's useful to have competition, soi would encourage and now look with some finer grain on thetext of this document.
>> and let me ask you this,mayor bowser, what's your vision of how the councilturned legislature would then interact with the neighborhoodboards, and do they become mini cities? do we see sort of everythingget changed or become like where we have this city ofgeorgetown? >> sure. i think you've touched onsomething that we've heard a lot in the town halls thatpeople, in fact, want to talk
about how we have moredemocracy and how it would be different than what we havecurrently. what is in the draft wouldconvert the city council to the state legislature. some have asked, should it bebigger. >> it seems quite small. >> it is small. i think it would be smallerthan, i think, every state, and some suggested that maybe weshould have a second chamber,
and if we had a second chamber,could we look to our second structures which are ancs andanc commisioners and some have said, if we're a state, what'sgoing to be our capital, so i think we have the opportunityto talk about how our wards can become-- >> almost like a city or somestructurish? >> something other than a ward. we would call it somethingdifferent but it would be the second unit within our state,in our state system, so those
are the questions that thecommission is dealing with, of how you convert a city into astate government, and that's what's outlined in the draft. >> chairmanâ mendelson, is itworth pursuingâ --â going back to seeing if there's going back tothe court, is it worth pursuing multiple channels, trying againin the courts even if jamie explain had the there's doublepressure on congress to do something? >> well, i'm a strong believerin pursuing multiple strategies
simultaneously if they'reavailable. we went to court roughly 10years ago and we thought we had a pretty good argument, and wedid not prevail. i don't know if there is adifferent argument, but i do know over time, argumentsreveal themselves and the state of the law does change. in fact, this was an argumentwe dealt with in the court regarding budget autonomy. why were we raising thiscivility to amend the home rule
act in 2015 when we could havedone this in 1990. so sometimes these argumentsthat are mysterious become apparent. as i sit here today, i don'tknow what the arguments would be in court. so i don't think there is alegal strategy right now, even if i appreciate if there aremultiple fronts for us to put pressure on congress. >> let me put it another way,since congress is failing in
its charge with dealing withthe d.c. budget, could you sue congress? essentially, they have not beendoing their job. i'm throwing it out there,where, you know, you haven't done your job and you'recosting the taxpayers money, you know? >> boy, is that a broadlawsuit. for not doing your job, a lotof people would sign that class action lawsuit.
could there be a legal auditfor their failure to do their job? >> i don't see it, but thereare some creative attorneys out there. >> right here in the district. >> that's what i mean, in thedistrict, walter smith, i keep looking at him. he keeps coming up withtheories. >> i'm not a lawyer, just playone on tv.
>> i think there are otherbrace to put pressure on congress. >> i would just say, you know,there's no salvation in the u.s. supreme court for anybodyanymore, and i think what we need is creative politicaltheories for how to organize and to put this on the nationalagenda in a serious way and to move it seriously in congressand move it in the democratic party, bring it to theattention of the republican party.
there's going to be a lot goingon in that convention. maybe somebody can sneaksomething in there. >> you talked about mayorbowser meeting with the dnc, is it worth trying to get ameeting with the rnc platform committee and say, hey, even ifit's simply getting them that there should be fairness whenit comes to taxation, even if they don't quite endorsestatehood, you get them to endorse a fair treatment oftaxpayers in the district of columbia?
>> well, sure.we had the d.c. g.o.p. testify at our monday session, andactually, the republican platform does addressd.c.â statehood. it actually says if they opposeit ever being on a platform or oppose d.c.â statehood,something to that effect, so what the d.c. g.o.p. is workingon is getting them to be silent, to take it out of theopposition of statehood out of the platform, and we thecommission will approach this in a nonpartisan way, just likewe reach out to the dnc and the
democratic candidates, we'll dothe same on the republican >> all right, well, i think iam out of questions. i will give everybody one lastwords that you want to get in. george, we'll start with you. >> i think jamie is right, thisis a time for political argument and calling on theconscience of people and really getting trump so angry at mitchmcconnell that he'll want two more senators. >> i think he would trade, ifhe could put his name at the
top of the old post officebuilding, he would endorse d.c.â statehood. i don't know if imready forthat compromise, but there's a way out of there. chairmanâ mendelson. >> i, too, think that in thenear term, the solution is a political one, and so we haveto be looking at different political strategies. too often, i think conversationabout statehood is a
conversation that we in thisroom have amongst ourselves or with ourselves in the district,and we've got to take that conversation outside thedistrict to the 50 states. >> mayor bowser, how do youconvince illinois democrats to get fired up about this, orcalifornia republicans to get fired up about this, or, youknow, how do you get critical? >> we have to build a sustainedeffort, and that is why i have been so focussed with thecommissioners on being very urgent right now and takingadvantage of the election that
is upcoming and use thesemonths to really get organized across the 50 states. the commission has a 50 statecommittee that is drafting a strategy to do that, and partof that is all of us, when we have an opportunity, any city igo to, i am trying to get a meeting with the editorialboard for d.c.â statehood and we outline the strategy for thecolleges and the universities in the district that have a lotof alocal rent supplement across the country and stillcare about washington d.c., but
also, chuck, there's justeducation that has to happen. you go to many states, they'renot thinking about washington. it never occurred to them thatwe're any different than they are. >> they do but not in apositive way. >> not in a positive way. so we want them to think oflocal washington and have the sustained effort to do that. part of talking about thisduring a heated presidential
race brings more attention towhat we're doing across the >> and jamie, what do you thinkit's going to take? i mean, you're not serving incongress yet barring some bizarre scenario, that, youknow, i'm not saying what we assume maryland will do innovember, but what do you think you can do to keep the pressureon and will you make the commitment even if they're notyour constiuents to keep your pressure on? >> absolutely.
d.c. is going to have a newfriend in congress in january. >> so you got your first vote. >> but, you know, again, ithink everybody's got to look to history, because thecongressional treatment of the district of columbia has been abarometer of what's taking place in our national politics,and during times of progressive change like reconstructionafter civil war, the district got lots of home rule, andthere was a real investment in the city and a council and soon, and at the end of
reconstruction, that is whenroam rule got revoked for the district of columbia and notknoll the modern civil rights movement that the districtpicked up momentum, again, and got the city council, the mayorand the delegate position that was re-created, so it's a bigdeal. it's not a little deal. it's a big deal in terms of thenational politics of the country, and we have to behonest as the fact as democrats and i'm here as a true bluedemocrat, we had a true
democrat with billâ clinton fora couple of years when he came into office, and we were notable to pass forward motion or statehood. the exact same thing happenedin 2008 when president obama got elected, so i think themayor is absolutely right to convene everybody so say ifthis could happen or be on the agenda? it's got to be early and highand a lot of pressure, and my answer to your question of whatis the best argument against
d.c.â statehood, if we're goingto be honest, nobody's fighting for it. that's the best argumentagainst it, because you have to fight for statehood if you wantstatehood, so the constitutional arguments ithink are specious and we understand the politicalarguments of the others, but i applaud the people here forsaying give it a serious try, and i believe, i hope thatpolitical conditions are forming around the country fora landslide election.
there could be some big changesacross the board, and this should be part of thosechanges. >> thank you very much. you wanted to add something. >> i just want to thank mayorbowser and chairmanâ mendelson. you are my mayor and my councilchair, so thank you for taking this on and making it a bigdeal. >> thank you. thank you, george.
>> i want to thank youeverybody and let me make one recommendation. i look out at the room and idon't see enough millennials. i see some so you need torecruit more of your friends, because i actually believewe're in a moment where millennials have the mindsetthat nothing is set in stone, and sometimes the older we getwe keep thinking, oh, that never happens. i always say that to myself.
i don't want to get to the beenthere, done that disease. i worried about it coveringpolitics and covering stories but the beauty of engaging themillennials, they're the social disruptors of the best orderright now, and by the way, if the millennials don't solve ourproblem, we're in trouble because there's too many ofthem now. you're dominating us and you'regoing to run this country, but if you can create that it hasbeen fascinating for me to watch.
i think massive change, thesocial change we've seen over the last decade has been powered by sort of thisattitude of millennials, the old rules don't have to applyand if push hard. next time we convene this,there should be more of our millennials in here. it was a pleasure to do this. >> thank you, chuck. >> why don't we get thecommissioners back up here.
thank you, again, chuck andgeorge and jamie. >> all right, you can come backto order, and, again, i want to thank the panel, and i don'tmean to be thanking myself, but the mayor but georgevradenburg, jamie raskin and of course, the moderator, chucktodd. we're now going to hear fromomarosa manigault, i hope i pronounced your name correctly. if you want to come here to thepodium. she's vice-chair of thediversity council for trump
campaign, and we'll hear fromher and after that, we will begin with public comment,testimony and discussion. we think folks are going tohave to come up here, although, we're trying to see if we canfigure out a more efficient way to enable everybody who wantsto comment to comment. >> you have to speak into themicrophone.. >> so, again, let me introduceomarosa manigault. good evening. >> good evening.
i am reverand omarosamanigault, the assistant pastor of ministry baptist church inlosâ angeles. to this newâ columbia greatstatehood and madam mayor, and my brothers and sisters, igreet you in the name of the lord jesusâ christ. i am not here on behalf of anypolitical party but as a former resident of the district ofcolumbia. you see, i came here in 1996,97 and got my masters degree and doctorate and a director atthe executive mba program in
howard. i about my first home here inthe district of columbia. what i did not realize when imoved to d.c. and became a homeowner for the first timewas, madam mayor, i would be giving up my rights, my voice,my power, and so now i stand in front of you to say that we canbe all on different teams, different political parties,but we have to be on the same side with this. i understand that most of thecountry don't know what happens
in the district. they don't know that 680,000residents have no vote, they have no voice, they have nopower, that they are taxed, that they serve in themilitary, that they serve on federal juries, but they arenot created in the same way as others in other states, and letme explain that. we go out all over the worldadvocating democracy. blood is spilt in the name ofdemocracy. i serve in the california statemilitary reserve as a military
chaplain where i see young menand women serve every single day in the name of democracy,but the residents of the district of columbia aredeprived of democracy, and so i say that democracy deprived isdemocracy denied. i'm a baptist preacher, youdon't have to talk to me. just turn to your neighbor andsay democracy deprivedâ --â c'mon, talk to eachother...is democracy denied and so i came here. i flew in from losâ angeles.
you know there were some stormslast night, but even when i was on my flight, i had a chance tothink about this, why would anyone in california care aboutwhat is happening in the district of columbia orillinois? they should care because youmatter, your voice matters, what you do in the district ofcolumbia matters, the billions of dollars that you pay intaxes matter, but yet, you can't even designate how thatmoney is spent or where it goes.
you can't even determine howits allocated when they add these writers on to yourbudget. democracy deprived is democracydenied. i am a baptist preacher so i'mgoing to go to the word, is that all right? the word tells me, my peopleperish because of a lack of knowledge, and so the worldmust know , the country must know, madam mayor, they mustknow that the residents of the district of columbia areserving, proudly serving in the
military and there are roughly30,000 veterans that have no representation. they must know that $26.4billion of taxes come from the district. they must know that thesecontributions should be controlled locally. they also must know that wedemand that the district of columbia becomes the 51ststate. >> so can i go old school onyou?
y'all going to participate? what do we want? >> statehood. >> when do we want it? >> now. >> what do we want? >> thank you, madam mayor. >> thank you, omarosa. >> thank you, reverendmanigault.
so let's turn now to citizentestimony and discussion. i believe we have a livemicrophone hooked up down here now? >> yes. >> and i don't see anybody thereso we can go home now? oh, yes, i do have a list. i have a long list. >> mayor: can we turn themicrophone so they are facing the audience?
>> all of these folks asked totestify? >> all right, a very long list. all right, bill lewis followedby keyshon puta. if you folks can line up andthat will be followed by peter rosenstein. >> hold on just a moment. there is somebody who is keepingtime in the front row and also in the middle so if you would bemindful because we have a lot of folks and when the time is up, iam going to ask you to --
>> okay, i will be brief. madam mayor, city councilmember, members, state senator strauss and brown andrepresentative garcia, i would like to state a case forstatehood, taxation without historically the u.s. congresshas treated the district of columbia as a colony whichcontradicts the very reason this country ended its relationshipwith the british in 1776. taxation without representation. today, the district residentshave been disenfranchised from
the national government becausewe have no vote in congress. our vote is under form ofnonvoting delegate to the house of representatives. d.c. has two senators and onecongressional representative comprising of a shadowcongressional delegation that lobbies congress for d.c.statehood. since 1841, the district hasbeen under the control of in that year, congress passedthe organic act which incorporated the new federalcity under total control as
permitted by the district clauseand article 1, section 8, clause 17 of the u.s. constitution. this made the district no longera part of any state. we lost our votingrepresentation in congress. the electoral college andconstitutional amendments and right to home rule. this fact raised protest fromdistrict residents. in 1950, civil right era helpedthe district efforts to win in '61, the district grantedvotes.
the district was granted votesin the electoral college in proportion with our size as wewere as many to a state. since 1960, we have voted fornine presidents, gotten home rule, elected seven mayors, ahost of city council members, anc commissioners. we have proven we canself-govern and the time has come for us to have fullrepresentation in congress. we want statehood and we want itnow. >> thank you mr. lewis.
mr. puta? okay, kia smart? >> ma'am, do you want to speak? >> then please speak. >> i'm sorry if i am out oforder. >> i assumed you were ms. smartbut please take the microphone and you will be followed beepeter rosenstein. >> hi, my name is jeanetteparker and i live in the district and i am a voting d.c.resident and a voting us
citizen. i am executive director of themedical support advocacy network which is a group that works onhuman rights and therefore i report on human rights problemsthat might be within our government, the u.s. governmentin relationship to international human rights treaties. i reported in my last report atthe universal periodic review that the citizens of d.c. werebeing denied participatory rights in our nationalgovernment and refused the
rights to speak their mind andbe democratically represented. this is a violation of a treatywhich is both signed and ratified by the u.s. congress.it is the iccpr. the international convention oncivil and political rights. and i report regularly on anyproblems in regards to the u.s. obligations on the iccpr. i am a person with disabilitiesand we recently had a treaty in front of the u.s. congress to bepossibly ratified. it was already signed bypresident obama and it was up
for ratification. there was strong bipartisansupport for this treaty. it is the treaty for the rightsof persons with disabilities, the treaty that honors the humanrights of every disabled person in the world when the countriessign and ratify this treaty. president obama was fully behindthe ratification crpd and we had very, very strong support. however, i, as a disabled womanliving in the city and the district of d.c., i had norepresentative at the senate to
represent me, to vote for me, tovote for all the d.c. residents who might be disabled here inthe district. and so that is why i am stronglyin support of statehood and why i want to help work with thecommission to try to bring forward the issues to the iccprto whom i regularly report. may i suggest to the timekeeperin the front row, maybe if you are willing to move own to thatseat there so the speaker can see you? so while peter rosenstein iscoming forward, he will be
followed by candace nelson, thenjuan thompson, then jeff nolan, so if they could be ready? following go mr. rosenstein willbe candace nelson. >> since i moved to the districtin 1978, i have needed glasses so excuse that. i have been in favor and spokenout for statehood since moving go to the district of columbiain 1978 from new york city. it was when i quickly realizedin doing so, i had given up my representation in congress.
i continue to play federal taxesbut no longer have a right to elect senators or congressperson with the right to vote on what is done with those taxes.over the past four years, there have been a number ofinitiatives in congress to grant statehood to the district, allfalling short of success. when i was involved in leadingthe fight for marriage equality, there was a general fear thatcongress would stop us and we would have little recourse. they have intervened in ourbudgets in legislation over the
years as they wouldn't in anyother state. they have used us for a petridish, mandating we give programs public and private schools inthe form of vouchers, something they wouldn't have the guts todo with any state they represent. through mayor bowsrer, theseissues are being brought to the forefront. the mayor has asked it be put onthe nosed ballot and i support that initiative but what we doneed to realize is governor
norton said the effort shouldnot be judged whether it achieved statehood but whetherit brings much-needed energy to the 51st state. this will be crucial and duringthe election cycle even more so as the mayor has said. the challenge is overcoming whatpeople don't understand about the district of columbia. most people think the districtof columbia is congress. they have no idea it is a650,000 people who live here and
very often hate congress as muchas they do. i have read the latest draftproposal and draft-proposes i only have a few comments. the first refers to article 1legislative band section 2 which covers members and vacancies.i believe if we are to be a state, we need more than 13people doing the work of the legislature. >> i have not determined theright composition but i think it needs to be bigger.
i think there needs to be morerepresentation. but if it is determined thatonly 13 people will do the work, i fully believe that we need tochange section 3 which is qualifications for holdingoffice and compensation. no person serving on that houseof delegates should be allowed to have an outside job. my final comment is about havinga section within the constitution to revisit with anadditional constitutional convention a few years after weachieve statehood.
there are many things we willhave looked at now that we won't have understood or exactly donethe right way the first time. we have to have a mandate thatthere will be another look at this, let's say, three yearsafter we have achieved we have another constitutionalconvention and correct any of deficiencies that are in thecurrent constitution. i believe we need to moveforward with this. i applaud the mayor, council andcommission for moving on it. it is time to put this on theballot in november and time to
get the huge vote that we gotfor hillary clinton last week for statehood. >> candice nelson, come forwardand she will be followed by juan thompson and then jeff nolan. >> good evening, everyone. >> thank you to the members ofthe new columbia statehood mayor muriel bowser, councilpresident phil mendelson, senators paul strauss, michaelbraun and franklin garcia. i am candace tiana nelson and ifyou haven't noticed yet, you may
start to notice right about nowthat i am not a native washingtonian. i am originally from winchester,virginia and share a hometown with patsy cline so if you heara twang or two, it is not it an act but an accent. when my accent and i moved tothe district of columbia, we did not appreciate the fact that iwas losing representation in the united states senate. nor did we appreciate the factthat my congresswoman in the
house of representatives wasonly allowed to vote in committee. the moment i signed the papersto buy my condo in ward 4 on rittenhouse street, i joined thedistrict without representation. i served as treasurer for fouryears, first vice-president for two years and now i ampresident. after helping to raise the issueof statehood through the ward 4 democrats for nine years, i canhonestly say we are now the closest we have ever been innearly a decade.
we cannot stop this momentum. we must continue to worktogether. there may be a few things thatyou don't like so remember we can agree to disagree withoutremoving our support for one another. never before have we gotten thismuch information on this important issue. we must continue through thisprocess and insure that there is a big result on tuesday november8th.
the larger the number ofresidents that vote on this referendum, the larger themessage we send to congress. i urge to you support the mayor,her plan and this process. i urge you to call all i don'tremember family members and friends and tell them to calltheir senators and their representatives in the house andrequest of them to make statehood app platform in theupcoming democratic and republican convention. kim going -- i am going to bethere.
i am going to be at thedemocratic national convention because on may 21st at the d.c.democratic caucus, i was elected to be a part of the conventionsupporting hillary clinton. we know she supports thedistrict having the appropriate i am with her. i am with mayor bowser. i am with council chair philmendelson and the members of this commission and i am withall of you. we are no different than anyother american.
so i will leave you with this.when i was up till 2:12 a.m. the other night watching thatamazing filibuster, i was proud to be a democrat. i was proudf the senatedemocrats however i was upset that i could not say my senatorparticipated. friends from virginia weretexting and tweeting all about their senator, senator warner,senator kane but who was i going to tweet or text about -- senator nonexistent?
it does not feel good to be leftout so ask yourself, what could you do? what should you do and what willyou do to insure that we are treated equal and given theright representation because after all, it is our right. juan thompson followed by jeffnolan. >> hi, eugene kimo told me tocome in, i am keyshon puta and i wassecond and had bike chaired up from downtown and very sorry imissed my turn.
>> please go forward. >> all right, hey, everyone. i have been working with someother great volunteers on the communications working group forthe statehood commission and i am really pleased that this iscoming together. i wasn't planning to testify buti see colleague eugene kimbo who requested i do. i am a former anc commissionerfrom dupont circle and of the
working chairs, the one anccommissioner so i will just speak for the commissioners andsay i do agree with peter's comments about ideally having amore representative -- a larger, wider represented legislate --legislature. if we don't have it already, wecan't say oh, we will deal with that later. i understand we will be shakingup the system to expand the legislature but we should tryit. it doesn't have to be crazy.we have 40anc commissions across
our city. they are our neighborhoods.each of those commissions is a neighborhood and they havecommissioners within them but perhaps each of thoseneighborhoods could have a delegate, assemblyman, if youwill, and that could be a small -- a legislature of 40. we praise the anc commissionersand their service all the time but i think it is time to put alittle money where our mouths are on that and go for morerepresentation and that is what
i same here to say and thank youvery much for hearing me out. >> okay, thank you. juan thompson followed by jeffnolan followed by aaron petrey. >> good evening ladies andgentlemen, members of the my name is juan thompson and iam a proud member of the ward 7 in the pembranch neighborhood.i am proud to serve on a number of boards from whom some arehere in the audience, the latino caucus and the naacp. i am here to testify before youon the need for statehood.
supporting the independentcommission within the government is crucial to statehood. we need the constitution theyare working on tonight to be drafted as soon as possible. all states work on theirconstitution every two or three years so drafting it quicklywith a precise document will be vital to our cause. this constitution needs a soundfooting within the committees that are assembled.i urge washingtonians that are
here tonight to make sure thaton november 11th, we vote positively for thisconstitution. >> thank you mr. thompson. jeff nolan followed by aaronpetrey followed by tom sheringer. >> good evening, everyone,jeffrey nolan, resident of ward 1 in mount pleasant. i am a new resident in thedistrict of columbia, lived here two years and i wanted to talkabout the case for statehood and
what it means for me being anlgbt american living in the district of columbia and why itis important that statehood reflects me. so i am originally fromcovington, georgia. if you don't know where that is,don't worry about it, you are not alone, just know it is a doton the map outside atlanta but like many small towns throughoutthe south and lots of places in this country, i was not acceptedfor who i was and i came to washington d.c. and i found ahome and i found a place that
protected my rights. i found a place where i was cana sent and i found a place where i could be who i wanted to beand not be scared of that. so -- so for me, what statehood meansfor me is that my rights and the protections the district hasgiven me are not subjected to the whims of congress andcongressional officials who demonize who and i am mycommunity. and i want to make sure thateven though i am a new resident
and d.c. is my home, d.c. iswhere i am going to create my family and where i would be fora very, very, very long time. so i want to insure that ourlaws are not subjected to the whims of congressionalofficials. i want my tax dollars to bespent in a way that my leaders are elected and represent mycommunity and i am concerned that the residents be brought tothe halls of congress by the leaders they drafted who arehave a right to vote on the laws that are drafted in the ways oftheir constituents.
like many americans, i recentlymourned the events that happened to my community in orlando,florida. as a lgbt american, i was angry,sad, hurt, upset to think of some of the role that ourpolicies and negative rhetoric had on that tragic event butunfortunately who was i going to call in congress that actuallyhad the power to vote on the policies that can prevent themesfrom happening. who was i to call? i don't still have a voice incongress so i am proud of the
work that the statehoodcommission is doing. i am proud they are doing thework that needs to be done to insure our voices are echoingthrough the halls of congress. thank you mayor bowser for yourwork, thank you to the statehood commission and for everythingyou are doing and let's get to work and turn out the vote andmake sure that our voices are heard in congress. >> followed by tom smith. >> hi, my name is erin petrey, adistrict resident for 10 years
which is almost as long as ihave been legally able to vote so that is kind of terrible forme. i live in ward 5. thanks. so first off i would like tomake a quick comment about the name new columbia. i think we should really examinethis because i think we should pick a name that is morerepresentative of us as a people rather than naming ourselvesafter an infamous imperialist
who represents something we areworking against rather than working for. so i would like you to kindlyconsider that. i come from kentucky, i feellike there is a lot of people from the south here. and it is a state where i guessi used to have the right, although briefly, to vote for mycongressional representation. when i moved to d.c. to pursue acareer in international relations, i lost that rightthat i was constitutionally
given as a citizen of the unitedstates. for nearly a decade, i havebuilt a life in a place so close to lawmaking yet so far anddisenfranchised from that process. i am soon about to buy my firsthome and it breaks my heart i actually have to considerwhether to stay in this home i have called home for a few yearsor abandon my city and move a few miles across a river toenjoy the rights that 99% of other fellow americans do.
it is not just a right. the residents of kentucky, astate that also used to be part of virginia and a lot of peoplein kentucky have not been to d.c., have more say over myrights and what is done with my tax dollars than i do as iexplained to my mother. i was like you have more to dowith d.c. taxes than i do and i authority i had long passed thedays when i lived under the rule of what mother thinks best. so finally i would really liketo commend the plan that they
have put forward to redraw theboundary of what is the federal district and the new state, youknow, because it just takes everything you do on that 8thgrade trip and says this is the federal district because a lotof people on those 8th grade trips, they don't see the restof d.c. and i think this redrawing also really doesdemonstrate to the rest of america that d.c. really is muchmore than politics, much more than congress, much more than acapital building. we are families, small business,culturally vibrant and unique.
in that way, it is also like therest of america and it is time we are given the full rights weare given by the constitution and the citizens of the unitedstates. >> thank you ms. petrey, mr. tomsheringer. >> thank you to this communityto be able to make a statement. i agree with many -- thingsincluding voting for the representation system but i wantto make a practical point from my experience as a federallobbyist of a long career and by the way, i serve on the advocacycommittee and i am looking
forward to taking this messageto the hill when that time comes. a number of citizens havecomplained about not being able to contact anybody on the hillon matters of personal or great important to it them and thatputs us all in a second-class position but as a lobbyist, manyin this town know that politics runs at the collective level. you have trade associations,labor unions, professional societies, networks of socialservice agencies, et cetera.
what happens, and would you haveall seen it on national television, when a member has anobjection? they contact all their membersand say call i don't remember congressman, call your senators,tell them to vote against this or against that. so what happens to the peoplewho are relegated to being registered to vote in thedistrict or have their union headquarters and the district --like who are they going to call? nobody.
so not only do we have thesecond mass citizenship on the personal level, they alsocollect it at the constitutional level. and you start seeing nationalorganizations thinking of the people without influence andrepresentation and i don't think that is what we want so that isone of the reasons i am supporting statehood. >> thank you, tamar mackfollowed by mora mcdonough and after that will be napa ramen.proceed.
>> so first i want to thankmayor bowser, chairman mendelson, senator strauss,garcia, senator brown, and also chuck todd, thank him as well. i will be living in the districtat least three more years because aim student but i amoriginally from memphis, tennessee and i am very happyand thankful that d.c. is looking to be adopted by thesame method as my home state and i want to share my testimony onwhy i am determined for d.c. statehood and the steps to makeit happen.
as i have come to know thepeople of d.c., i have been so confident the leaders of thisgreat victory can go run a dynamic legislature that willstrife for justice and prosperity for everyone in thedistrict. and now impersonally making apledge to spread the word about why this issue is so greatbecause my generation, we are a social media savvy generation,we love to build and spread coalitions across the country sowe need to make sure everyone in america knows why it isimportant for d.c. to become a
state. a lot of the speakers today arepeople who, like myself, came from it other places, moved tothe district and then realized, oh, wait, we don't haverepresentation. so we want to make sure everyoneacross the entire nation knows this issue is happening becauseif you ask people from other places, they would think peoplein d.c. have the same rights if not more rights. my friends back home know ican't always support democrats
or republicans but this issueneeds to very much transcend parties. this issue comes down to -- -- this is an issue that needsto bridge the gap. wherever you are across theaisle, we need to understand that d.c. statehood is somethingthat is a fundamental aspect of our country. people need to haverepresentation in congress and so i also --
>> i want to close by saying iand other students at georgetown are working hard to build thatcoalition so i urge everyone, call other people in otherplaces in the country, start spreading the word. mayor bowser, i love how yousaid this issue needs to touch all 50 states and i would workvery hard every day to get that done. >> thank you mr. mack, ms. moramcdonough. >> hi, everyone, my name is moramcdonough, a member of the
georgetown university and memberof student government there. i want to use this time tobriefly explain why d.c. statehood is so important to me. i am from boston but now acollege student deeply interested in d.c. politics. i had nowhere else to go butd.c. i was very surprised to learnthat we don't have voting rights in the area. for someone who gets to choosewhere they live, this is such a
strange question. if i were to buy property, ilose my right to vote but whether i move or stay, therewill always be a population here within the u.s. that don't haverights. many other students atgeorgetown end up moving to d.c. after they emmigrate. i believe my peers should haveequal rights no matter where they choose to live. those who live in d.c. don'tjust contribute to this district
but the nation as a whole. they will face many obstaclesbut the basic gain -- guaranteed right to vote shouldn't be oneof them. as son majoring in government, ihave studied in-depth of why our system is so unique in theworld. i believe the lack of d.c.statehood is a great faltering of how our country is intendingto function. i am also majoring in socialgovernment and taking away voting rights is silencing ofthat society.
obviously this is an issue thatis very easy to ignore if you are not in d.c. or adjacentstates. you don't hear complaints aboutthis in other states because here in d.c., we have no channelto speak for ourselves through government, at least not on thescale as other states do so the lack of statehood is affecting aportion of americans and i know there is nobody in this roomthat considers silencing a specific portion of americans tobe a democratic idea. d.c. was created for ourcountry's government.
it has clearly turned into somuch more. we are now a district, over670,000 people. despite our lack ofrepresentation, d.c. residents have created a place where itsonly culture, history and voice are heard. it is time to make that voicecount by giving the citizens voting rights they deserve. i want to make my home in d.c.and to do so, want to see that our country lives up to thestandards we set for ourselves.
aim strong proponent of d.c.statehood and i urge you to be too. >> thank you ms. mcdonough.napa ramen, and i apologize if i am mispronouncing your name and you will be followed by jimthomas. >> thanks so much for having me.i am a rising sophomore at georgetown university and i amhere to tell you why i stand in favor of the d.c. statehood.so growing up, we all learned from the very beginning thatthere are 50 states.
it was kind of like the law ofphysics, something you took and argued with and it was nevergoing to change. then you ended up learning thatthose 50 states were the very backbone of the americandemocracy that we're all so proud of but that is exactly whywe're all here. it is because democracy onlyexists in those 50 states and that is something that needs tochange. whenever d.c. statehood came up,it always would spark a debate and there was strong debate onboth sides but d.c. statehood
ended up winning. but that was just it, it is justtalk and nothing ever came out of those empassioned feelingspeople had and because it was talk to, no action, nothingended up getting done. now for the first time in mylife, i am seeing that change. when i go to college, i amseeing people who take action on things i am passionate about,whatever it is. it is people who need the rightto vote and we're finally making that a possibility.
we asked earlier in the eveningwhy it is millennials are not involved and they should be. for us, it isn't just theeconomic benefits, political benefits or getting the right tovote, it is an opportunity for us to actually see something wehave been talking about for years become a reality. the reason i and a lot of othermillennials stand for d.c. statehood is it is anopportunity to take these words and make them a action.
it is an opportunity for us tolet the next generation learn about 51 states, not just 50. >> let me say good evening toeveryone here and especially to our mayor and to our chairpersonfor the city council and for senator brown and senatorstrauss and also representative strauss -- >> garcia. >> garcia, as well as i know youand i see my friend here, too. so i do want to say my name isromaneb. thomas and i was born
in this city, delivered at homein the community of trinidad so that tells you how old i am. people ask what are older folksfor. there are not many here butthere are some i know how old they are so elvis, raise yourhand because it is good to have you here and i am thankful and iwant to say let's give a round of applause to thesepassionately speaking young folk who came up and gave their votefor liberation. and as i talk, i say that iswhat old folks are for.
you can link the past and linkthe present and link the future and give a standard in terms ofwhat the foundation is and where we are. and as i said, i am romanethomas and i am a long-time advocate for children, forfamilies and for citizens. and also a community organizerand leader. and i currently serve aschairperson for the commission on aging and i am glad torecognize we have one of our commissioners here, mr. charles.
glad to have you here and i mustsay i am proud to be present here and to be part of thisdeliberation and on a personal note, let me say this andsomebody going to say oh, i thought that but i didn't know. but i am the widow of the formercouncil member howard l. thomas. >> and anybody who knew howardknew he was a humanitarian, that he cared about people. he cared what happened and hewas passionately concerned about and he was in that firstcommittee that established and
started statehood and it is sowonderful to have our mayor and the other council members andmembers of the commission to build on that foundation. often we forget about afoundation and think that it starts right where you come inbut it starts long before that. and we must remember that. and it starts for us way backwhen we first came over here to and i won't go into all thehistory of it because we have had that stated here tonight andi won't take up that time but we
know the history books and weknow what the story is all about and we know what the journey isall about. so it means that we got tocontinue to fight and to move forward for that journey. and i am very proud to bepresent here as i said and i know that i will continue to beinvolved. i am here to represent all ofthose folks who have been here and no longer are upon thisearth but have left their footprints all over the pages,all over the communities, all
over the neighborhoods. so we want to continue thatfight and i am proud to be here again because as i said, i wantto continue in that fight and we have heard over and over againabout the unjust, shameful treatment of us as citizens sowe can't tolerate that any longer. we are going to continue to moveforward and to fight and we're here tonight to follow up onthat constitutional adjustment that we're trying go to moveforward with and to give that
support and i see the time istelling me to stop but i do want to say that we're not going tostop moving ahead for statehood. and thank you for yourattention. jim bubar. >> good evening my fellowdelegates, my name is jim bubar and also i want to thank thedemocratic voters for the district of columbia forelecting me to be a delegate to the democratic nationalconvention on behalf of hillary clinton.
i also want to thank mycolleagues for electing me for another election to the bar andi want to recognize statehood for the district of columbia. statehood will guarantee to theresidents of the district of columbia for congressionalvoting representation, budget and legislative autonomy and allof the rights that the people of the 50 united states enjoy thatwe do not. now, my remarks tonight are onmy own but i also want to quote someone else.
winston churchhill once saidthat americans will always do the right thing after they tryeverything else first. we have been fighting for equalrights in the district of columbia since i can rememberand it is time for statehood. i think it is best practice andone suggestion for the drafters of the map. i am sure this has beenoverlooked. i want all the drafters to drawa certain line around the hotel at pennsylvania avenue so acertain republican will not end
up with three electoral votes. i want to thank you mayor bowserand the commission and all of the work and like to offer myassistance and thank you for allowing me to speak thisevening. >> thank you mr. bubar. robert franham. followed by harold hunter. >> good evening and salutations,my name is robert brown and i am a pretty resident of ward 5 andproud to be here.
and i wanted to say as a retiredveteran, willing to put my life on the line for statehood andthe right to vote for people around the world. i am an activist in this cityand willing to go to jail for statehood and to have joinedmembers of the panel who went to jail with me. it is time, that time is now andwe need to tell the world that the district of columbia needsstatehood and that we oppose racism, we oppose bigotry,massogeny and he will be not
elected in november. >> thank you, harold hunterhere? mark will be followed by colby,looks like it says sullen. >> i want to say thank you tothe panel. this is my third appearance buti can't stop talking about statehood and i can't pass upthe opportunity and i warn you, i understand i am talkingtomorrow, too so please indulge me. just a little politic history.
i have said some of these thingsbefore but like bernie sanders, i give the same speech and youwill have to excuse me. we cannot define defeat asvictory in 1993, there was a statehood vote. it got 153 vote. the number was 218. one republican, we shouldmention his name, was a profound courage, wayne gillchrist and hewent over to our delegate and said it is a question ofdignity.
we had an opportunity in '93 andit never even moved in the senate. we have to name names and it isbecause of john glenn who is no national hero to me and jimsasser who wouldn't move the bill in the senate. we had another opportunity in2009 and shouldn't have gone for a a modicum of democracy, weshould have gone for statehood. just like in 1993, we hadoverwhelming majorities in the house and the senate.
filibuster proof. in 2014, we didn't have ademocratic house but we had a democrat president anddemocratic senate and tom carper of delaware had a hearing anddidn't even talk to his fellow democrats and one republicanshowed up, tom colbert. we can't allow that to happenagain. so i am the paul revere. i am saying we cannot allow -- idisagree with my fellow -- i admire that republican but it isnot a long view, it is a short
window. it is 2017 and the first year ithas to be done and we can't fool around and we have a test. the mayor was too kind aboutnera tanden who was hillary clinton's representative on theplatform committee. i hounded her, walked her out ofthe building and she would not commit to having statehood inthe platform. if hillary clinton is not goingto insist that the word statehood be in the platform,then we don't have a chance in
2017 and i will close with this,which i closed before, really -- summons. i have been here too long, 52years and i want it to happen in my lifetime. i said to jesse jackson when hewas a statehood senator, when will it ever change and this isthe charge to all of these people and to us, when it risesto the level of personal insult, we bow, we got to be insultedand act on it. >> colby sullen?
followed by -- some people ican't read their writing so far, looks like it says paferesky,okay, you will be next and then david schwarzman. please proceed mr. sullens. >> thank you madam mayor,senators, representative, my fellow u.s. citizens of thedistrict of columbia, my name is colby sullens. an air force veteran, graduateof the u.s. air force academy and american university collegeof law.
i am currently enrolled in thegeorge waf -- washington university law school.we have been here about nine years. i am from arizona. my wife from new hampshire. both states with strong culturesof liberty and self determination. and we were glad to join youhere and be part of this community because we believe sostrongly this community belongs
in congress. my wife would have liked to joinme here today but she is 9 months pregnant and decided itwas a bridge too far so i have my phone on me. but we are looking forward towelcoming our son into this community, a warm, caringcommunity that shares those views, that perspective at thenational level in congress. i have three points to make. first, the name.
i propose the name it of ourstate should be anacostia. new columbia, where is oldcolumbia? columbia is a concept, an idea,a personification of the ideals of liberty this country espousesand she is beautiful and wonderful but takes a lot ofexplanation especially when we have the history of christophercolumbus and a country in south america that sounds just likeit. so i propose anacostia becauseit represents our history, our present and our future.the history of the anacostia
people, i am going tomispronounce it but the people lived here on the eastern banksof the anacostia river and they had another town wheregeorgetown is today. they were here. when they left their villages,they moved to the anacostine island when you know as theteddy roosevelt island. the river is only 98.4 mileslong and most of it is in the district of columbia and as welook to grow our community and expand it, it will be in thatarea so anacostia i think is far
more representative than any ofthe other options. i know we are only supposed totalk about other articles but i would like to put out quickarticle 1, section 2, we say elections are on a partisanbasis. ideally, i would say nonpartisanbut i know that is not realistic so i urge us to consider as amodel, article 2, sections 5 and 6 of the californiaconstitution. i think that is an ideal model. article 5 talks about a top twoprimary election and article 6
talks about a nonpartisanelection for local offices which, given the strong federalcommunity we have here, nonpartisan openings for them torun for local offices would be very helpful and i am out oftime but real quick, article 3, section 2, we need to define thejudicial constitution and i look to the arizona article 6,section 41 for the definition and makeup of a nonparts sonjudicial commission that includes attorneys, judges andnonjudges and what it should consist of and additionally withrespect to our current --
>> you said you had threepoints? >> well, the third point is intwo parts. >> it is a long list and thereare 30 more people. >> i understand and i willsubmit my comments in writing. thank you for your time. >> mr. paferesky followed bydavid schwarzman and then kathleen beal. >> hello, everyone. so rather than just spend mytime talking about the
importance of statehood and theneed for it, we all agree in this room we need it. it has been discussed for toomany years already so the outcome of what we're doing heretoday needs to be how is this going to get through congressbecause we know in the late 70s, giving us voting representationin congress, we needed three fourths of the states to ratify,we only had 18 states do that so again how do we get the proposedlegislation through? i understand you don't want toomuch partisan, it is not
appealing to congress overalland will not be appealing in 2017. so the question is how do we dothose things? one of the things that i thinkis very important that we exclusively say in the proposedconstitution is that we enumerate the rights guaranteedin the 15th amendment of the constitution and the 24th aswell but need to say something about the right to voteexpressly so we don't have a north carolina-like situationpotentially here in terms of
voting restrictions and thosetype of things being a possibility when you allwonderful people are no longer in positions of authority. and my -- the last part would bethat we need national media attention. the reality is that residents inguam and the u.s. virgin islands, puerto rico, they callthese things the same thing and some of them are but the bottomline is this needs to happen. i don't want to come here inanother 20 years and have a talk
about, yeah, we need statehood,we have been talking about it since -- you know, home rule wasin the early 70s as we know. it has been over 40 years. that is long enough, as has beensaid many times. but the bottom line is this justneeds to happen. look, i am a millennial, we donot have enough people that come out, okay? in the elections on tuesday weknow in d.c. overall, we have, what was it, 27% of the eligible-- voters participate so we need
more participation overall andthat is a national thing. but how did this happen? we know it is important, we allwant it but it needs to happen and i urge everyone that ishere, those not here and those who will be here in the future,would need to keep the conversation going and you needto have national media david schwarzman followed bykatherine beal followed by shelley thompkins. >> i'm david schwartzman, i'velived in d.c. since 1976 when i
joined the statehood party andthat was the forerunner of the d.c. stated green party. i'm also a professor emeritus athoward university. i taught there for 39 years.since i retired i'm a full-time troublemaker. first i applaud our stateddelegation for their tireless and underfunded lobbying forstatehood from the local to the international scale, andlikewise everyone here. who has come out to testify inthis mark my word so-called
constitutional convention. and of course i also thank ourelected government for their commitment to the goal ofstatehood. and i'm going to just divert alittle bit in history we should all recognize the historiccontribution of the d.c. statehood party to the strugglestarting with hilda mason, joe butler, sam smith and others andone of them is sitting right here, phil blair. we have never supportedincrementalism.
rather focused on the onlysolution true self government and the quality with citizens inthe 50 states. d.c. statehood. and those are the nice words. now i'm going to be a littlemore critical. i say so-called constitutionalconvention because this is not a democratic process. no one elected the new columbiastatehood commission to come up with a new constitution.
if i were a delegate i would beelected and i would have a vote on the constitution just like1982. at which was ratified by voters. what is being proposed herekeeping the structure as it is now, 13 councilmembers become 13legislators is simply a way to ensure the city council wouldcontinue to set the agenda for a local elected government once weachieve statehood. an agenda resulting in recordlevels of income inequality and the vanishing of affordablehousing for the majority of our
residents. i'm almost done. therefore, we should either usethe already ratified 1982 constitution with itsprophetically progressive bill of rights or convene an electeddelegated convention after the november election. following the example andsubstance of the 1982 convention and, indeed, the tennessee planwhich is referred to in your document.
the bill of rights in 1982included provision for freedom from discrimination based onrace, color, religion, creed, citizenship, national origin,sex, sexual orientation, poverty, parentage or disabilityand the right of employment as well for those unable to workand income sufficient to meet basic human needs and finallyall of this anticipated the fact that we became the first humanrights city in the united states which actually embodies theexactly the same rights. so thank you for your time.
>> thank you, mr.â schwartzman. katherine beal? and she will be followed byshelly thompson and then diane richmond. >> hi, everybody. my name is katherine beal and iam a senior at boston university. i'm writing my undergraduatethesis on d.c. statehood. i'm so excited that i see somany people here supporting the
cause for d.c. statehood, but ithink and i'm just going to reiterate what has already beensaid but even though there are so many people here supportingnow we can get even more support and i think that the best way tohelp get support is to tell your friends, your family members,people in the grocery store, anyone that you see explain tothem it makes no sense that me as a 7th generationwashingtonian, i don't have congressional representation, idon't get a say in how the government works but if i moveless than ten miles from my
home, if any of us move lessthan ten miles from their home they will be outside of the d.c.borders, they will be in maryland or virginia and theybecome full constitutional citizens. and i think that is silly. i think that is -- idiotic thatwe aren't full residents of the united states because we live inthe capital, we live in the center of democracy. we are the capital of the freeworld but we ourselves don't
enjoy the freedom that we try tospread through the whole world. and i don't know why. i don't know why d.c. residentsdon't have this but i think we can all agree that it is unfair. that's why we are here and weall can agree that it un-democratic. i want to thank the commissionand i want to thank everyone for their support with this and i'veonly begun i'm in the infant stages of my research to i don'thave much more information or
suggestions to provide but ithink the larger the voice is the greater the odds are that wewill succeed in this so thank you. >> miss shelly tompkin and thenroyal height. >> my name is shelly tompkin, iappreciate this opportunity to testify on this very significantmatter for the 670,000 residents of washington, d.c. i am a native washingtonian. a political scientist and along-time political and
community activist in in d.c.i first want to commend mayor bowser in the strongest of termsand the commission for showing leadership on behalf ofachieving the goal of d.c. becoming the 56st state. i also applaud her forrecognizing that it is vital, vital to take opportunities asthey appear and i do, i do support this process. in that it allows any citizen toprovide input on the content of this draft constitution throughtown meetings, and this
and so as a citizen i am nowtaking the advantage of that opportunity. i am only going to address oneaspect of this draft constitution but one that iconsider fundamental. that is the issue ofrepresentation. in the legislative body. i know that wasn't gone through this evening but i wasn't ableto appear on monday. and i would like to state thatthe size of the newly
constituted body should beenlarged significantly. if we wish to become a statethen we should look like a state in the design of the body thatdirectly represents the people. now, why do i say this and whydo i feel so strongly about this particular matter? first and most important, with alarger, either unicameral law making entity or a bicameralbody more citizens can have an opportunity to be heard and havea seat at the decision making table on matters that affecttheir well-being and quality of
life. it stands to reason that ifthere are more representatives available to do a job thenresidents will be able to enjoy closer attention from theirrepresentatives. the simple reality of havingmore hands on deck will allow for greater responsiveness tod.c.'s residents' challenges. in the words of the nationalconference of state legislatures with fewer constituents, alegislator is likely to have more face to face dealings withconstituents.
again in the words of thenational conference of state legislature, quote, a largernumber of members allows for more effective division of laborand specialization. second, if we are serious aboutbecoming a state our legislature should look like a statelegislature. no state including the stateswith the smallest population centers has a state legislaturewith a membership of less than 40 representatives. most are much larger.
the more significant equation,however, is population per legislator. it says stop but i do want tomake these points. >> if you wind up quickly. >> okay. three states, wyoming, vermont,north dakota, population per legislative ratio is 4,000 to 1,9,000 to 1, 7,000 to 1 with 13 person council or 13-personhouse of delegates the ratio is 80,000 constituents to one.
third real quickly i don't thinkthe legislature should be overly large either. a right-sized legislature can doa better and more efficient job in cowering out its legislativeduties and since i've run out of time i am going to be happy tosubmit some specific recommendations for thisdiscussion. so in conclusion i ask thestatehood commission to take this matter seriously. it embodies an important elementat the core of our struggle for
genuine democracy, more directrepresentation in making decisions that affect thequality of our life. >> chair: thank you. diane richmond? is diane richmond here? royal height? is he here? and there height will befollowed by matthew levy and then josh burch.
>> to the distinguished panelalong with our mayor, muriel bowser, i salute all of you forall of the hard work you guys have done to bring state hood tothe forefront where it is right now. let me introduce myself my nameis royal height. i am a -- i'm representing twoorganizations, d.c. legendary musicians, which i think you sayyou get five minutes if you represent an organization andalso stand up, free d.c. over here and we are bothorganizations that are quite
active in the d.c. communityrepresenting musicians who put forth music for causes like thisand also a group that is actively involved and has beenfor more than 20 years making a point to put statehood in theminds and the hearts of people as the music ambassador for freed.c. i want you to know that i am an active member of the rockand roll hall of fame, the r and b hall of fame, the doowop hallof fame and i took it upon myself to present washington,d.c., with a gift dedicated to the legacy of one of my familymembers, dorothy height.
this is a song designed to unitethe cry for state hood not just in the d.c. proper but aroundthe world but at this time i would like to share with you themusic i put together because music has power and it unitespeople and again, ladies and gentlemen, at this time i wouldlike to introduce the d.c. theme song for statehood and itsentitled taxation without >> chair: mr.â height, i needyou to be mindful of the time, please. >> i was told we had fiveminutes if you represented an
organization. is that not true? i will do a verse of the song. >> but we do have, we have it available and it will be, it ison the radio. taxation without -- all right. some of you have heard it. and just pay attention to thelyrics if you will. it can't be right for everyoneelse but wrong for you and me.
everywhere in the usa, exceptwashington, d.c. we even go as far to fight forvoting rights and democracy and overlook the nation'scapital, more than a century we ain't been heard. there is something with taxationwithout representation. it is wrong. let me hear you say taxationwithout representation how long. i'm going to end it right nowbut the song is a very, very appropriate song one that weplan on taking not only to the
city but around the world as theambassador of music. that's our intent and that's ourcontribution to end this wrong thing taxation withoutrepresentation. and state hood for washington,d.c. >> chair: thank you, royalheight. matthew levy followed by joshburch. is mr.â levy here? josh burch? and you will be followed bymichael lee matthew.
>> and matt said he agreed withwhatever i said. >> there you go. >> thank you, guys, for hostingagain tonight. specifically for the executivebranch in terms of recommended changes, there is a -- we talkabout the attorney general but it doesn't delineate any powersto our attorney general in the constitution and theconstitution is supposed to articulate the powers that thatoffice should have so i think we really need to take time andaddress the powers of our newly
elected attorney general. although this is in thelegislative branch i think the line item veto needs to be takenout of the constitution. if we want to deal with thatonce we are in a state that is fine but i don't think it shouldbe in our constitution. i think the legislative reviewof contracts should be taken out. again that is something weshould deal with after we are a state but it shouldn't be in ourconstitution.
i would like to say i think themap that was presented the other night was really good. i agree with what other peoplehave said we need a much bigger legislature and much morerepresentative legislature in terms of representing a fewernumber of people as opposed to 70,000 we need representativesof 20 to 25,000 and people have brought up the name severaltimes and i'm going to reiterate what i said the other night assomeone born and raised here and raising a family here, it wouldbe -- it would fill my heart
with pride and emotion to benamed after frederick douglass as opposed to what our currentstate name is proposed to be and i think we can do douglasscommon wealth and we keep the d.c. that we are so proud of soi think douglass commonwealth is the way we should go. i'm going to finish under mytime because i love all of you and i love my families andthat's where we all want to be at some point tonight. >> chair: thank you, mr.â burch.michael lee matthew, followed by
lakelia dolman followed by bethmarcus. >> i have to say chairmanmendelson, one of my favorites and brings joy to my heart.muriel bowser for president to lead this city, to lead thiscountry, america's very best mayor. once again, muriel bowser forpresident to lead this city, to lead this country, america'svery best mayor. to fix this city, and to fixthis country, we are here to lead.
we're not here to follow. once again, to fix this city, tofix this country we are here to lead and we are here to follow. healthiest city in america, themost peaceful city in america, the safest city in america, thecity of love. the healthiest city in america,the most peaceful city in america, the safest city inamerica and the city of love. let's make this happen. we can do this.
let's all work together. we are number one. let's move forward together. no one left behind. reaching all of the people. greatest city in america. let's move this, let's moveforward together. believing in the mayor tosupport the mayor we deserve the best.
moving this city forward. believing in the mayor to support the mayor we deserve the best moving this city forward. best student -- most important the public schools best studentsin america, best teachers in america, best schools inamerica, the highest performing schools. this should be our goal.
best students in america, bestteachers in america, best schools in america, the highestperforming schools, the city of champions, we're here to winlet's fight for statehood. unprecedented, unmatchedeconomic prosperity to the city. bringing unprecedented,unmatched economic prosperity to the city. our wonderful heavenly father,number one, four trillion dollar team, number two, let there belight, number three, and, four billion dollar plan.
i pray that the president andthe vice-president and the hundred senators and 435representatives will cling to our father's commandment, clingto our father's covenant the same way we do the constitutionand once again muriel bowser for president to lead this city, tolead this country. america's very best mayor, tofix this city, to fix this country we're here to lead. we're not here to follow andbest students in america, best teachers in america, bestschools in america and the
highest performing schools andthe sabbath, the 25th sabbath has begun so thank you very muchfor allowing me to speak. [inaudible] is she here? >> hello. my name is lakayla dolman. i am six years old, and i attendfriendship chamber lynn elementary school. i shared my statehood pictures,flyers and music with my school. they were very excited.
they support d.c. statehood. they want statehood. all right. >> chair: thank you, miss dolman. beth marcus will be followed bykesh and then matthew fruman. >>> i think there has to be a w.c. field quote or something about not following children buthere it goes, anyway. very brief.
i would like to suggest a changefor modification to the we all agree that d.c. residentsare dis enfranchised by the federal government as a very,very proud democrat i believe our closed primary systemcreates dis enfranchisement of many d.c. residents, republicansand independents, and there are many people who for reasons oftheir jobs such as journalists who cannot register to vote as ademocrat or as one particular party so i think we are disenfranchising our own citizens. i think that the constitutionand i say this as a democrat.
i think that this constitutionshould require open primaries. the u.s. constitution in articlei is very specific that certain laws should have been passedwhen it was created by the congress of the united states. so i see no reason why we can't be specific about this in theconstitution. i really think open primariesare essential and maybe it would show to those who are on adifferent political perspective than mine that it mightameliorate the partnership
arguments so i encourage you toconsider open primaries, and i've got a minute so i'm justgoing to say something about i don't know how we get peoplethroughout the country to be supportive of this. i'm a volunteer docent at thenational archives and i was mentioning to the mayor thatright now for the amending america exhibit until 2017 there is an entire wall. i love it.
it is a whole wall about howd.c. has -- pays more in federal taxes than they said i think 17states, 20 states, whatever it is it is a lot and how we havemore people. this is an entire wall and wheni have the chance to take tourists in there i make surethat they see this wall and they are all oh, my this is terrible. i'm a d.c. resident and couldyou help us, please, only you and your states can help us. and they all look like theysupport it and everything.
i doubt any of them go back homeand call their representative to do anything so i don't know whatwe do. but that is the key. somehow there has to be and iencourage all of you to come to the archives and see that wallbecause you will be very proud to see that there is a wallmaking that statement but the point is where do we take it. so thank you. marcus.
kesh [inaudible] followed by matt fruman. thank you, commissioners, thankyou, fellow d.c. residents. my name is kesh [inaudible] andi will be testifying on behalf of d.c. follow democracy. d.c. for democracy commends thecommission for bringing new momentum to the statehoodmovement. we support the concept of anovember referendum that will allow d.c. voters to affirm oursupport for statehood and for
the full rights of citizenship. we also welcome revisiting thestate constitution. these are all positive elementsthat we fully support. we are not, however, in favor ofincluding a vote on a new state constitution in november. rather we suggest that votersascend to a process for convening a constitutionalconvention with elected delegates that will have properauthority to create a new the reasons for ourrecommendation are as follows.
the proposed tennessee plan isnot substantively different from the current new columbiaadmission act. the obstacles in the currentbill to the current bill are not concerns about the 87constitution but pure politics. a referendum that affirms d.c.voters' desire for statehood and authorizes a properconstitutional convention together with a favorableoutcome in the november elections will providesufficient momentum for statehood next year.
and we agree that a new stateconstitution is needed. however, it is not necessary tofinalize this constitution by november. we can mobilize support forstate hood nationally and on capitol hill while we conduct aproper and legitimate the current process fordeveloping a new constitution does not pass muster. the authority for drafting andfinalizing the constitution rests solely with thecommission.
this event tonight is awonderful thing but it is not a >> and despite these pretty badges we are not delegates withany real authority. like congresswoman norton we arenonvoting delegates. a rushed and un-democraticprocess to draft a constitution before november risksundermining support for it would be disastrous if thereferendum fails to pass overwhelmingly. the inclusion of questions onthe constitution, boundaries,
form of government, risksraising concerns in the minds of the public. in our initial review of thedraft constitution we are concerned by a number ofprovisions i will not read them all now but the most seriousconcerns are the size of the house of delegates, the mannerof filling vacancies for at-large members and theconstitutional amendment the new state constitution is aseries matter of great concern to the people and should behandled through a proper and
legitimate constitutionalconvention before it is submitted to the voters forratification. we urge the commission toaddress these concerns by simplifying a desire forstatehood and authorize a proper constitutional convention.d.c. for democracy members have worked diligently to promotestatehood for the last seven years as active members of thed.c. statehood coalition. we are wholeheartedly committedto achieving statehood. we offer these recommendationsbecause we agree with the
commission's goal of buildingmomentum for statehood this year and next and wish to remove anyobstacles to success in that effort. we look forward to working withthe commission towards our common purpose of advancingstatehood in this critical period. matt fruman followed bytabariâ takia and then it looks like it says carolyn celric. >> so first i want to thankmayor bowser who got this
process going. hats off to you for getting itgoing. i also have to say this eveninghas been sensational so thanks to the commission and thanks tothe people who have participated so far. we need to get it right and sowhether it is stepping back or whether it is getting revisionsthat take into account the comments that you've received itis critical that we get the template right here.
i'm just going to make a fewpoints. on the size of the legislature,i think you've heard it from a lot of different people, a lotof different reasons, 13 is way too small. 13 when we have a council of 13sort of looks like a self preservation kind of thing. i think we need a significantlylarger legislature. one that can accommodate thekind of competition that mr.â radenburg and raskin weretalking about earlier.
second on the powers of thestate board of education it gets technical but the draftconstitution says that the legislature can empower thestate board but only up into the level that the state poured hadpower before the constitution was enacted. the effect of that is to makemayoral control which have a policy choice a matter for theconstitution. people can debate it one way orthe other but it shouldn't be in the constitution.
it is a little bit of an anomalyprovision there and it can easily be fixed in a revisionprocess. last i will speak to the name ihave to say i've always liked the name new columbia. i hadn't thought much about itbut i've thought it had a nice ring to it. i hear all of the differentconcerns that people have raised and it makes me think how weddedam i to a name and it is a little hard to be wedded to aname when we are also urging
that the football team changeits name, demanding that the football team change its name soi think i hope that the commission will be receptive tothinking about different names that might better reflect thevalues of the people of our city. so with that i think i have aminute i'm going to stop in the spirit of josh burch and letpeople get back to their homes. but thank you very much for yourwork on this. is savariâ zukia here?
if you would come forwardfollowed by carolina again i'm sorry, it is hard to read thewriting here. followed by cliff smith. and then lawrence albert. please proceed. my name is jabaraâ zukia i wasborn and raised here and then went through the then goodpublic school system and went to cornell engineering and thengeorgia tech and got my masters in ee and worked 15 years atgardener space flight center
after leaving georgia tech. i write software and teach andtutor mostly math. i'm testifying about suggestionsi believe will make the process of creating constitution moreefficient and easier to manage and will produce a moresatisfying and acceptable result to a larger majority of thepeople. i'm going to excerpting parts ofthe paper i'm creating, creating the modern constitution for the51st state which is available online.
creating a better and moreinclusive process, one, the process leads to take as muchtime as required and not be artificially rushed and timeconstrained. two, there needs to be moremoney, effort and time put into getting the word out to everycitizen that this process is taking place. this should include creating abasic constitutional primer, comparing structures andprovisions of the current state constitutions to educate peopleon the basic ideas, structures
and terminology involved inmaking a constitution to use as a baseline to start discussionsfrom. three, the people should be theultimate determiners of the basic structures and provisionsincluded in the constitution not lawyers, academics andpoliticians. four, the commission should usea document version control system such as get and an onlinedocument repository such as get hub to maintain the draftsallowing people public access to the most recent version and themeans to download modify and
submit updated versions forreview, consideration and by the public and the commission. five, the commission should useonline forums to encourage and facilitate public discussions onthe issues, it should also conduct periodic and necessarypublic polls on the issues to determine the documents anddocument real time public sentiment on the issues. now issues that need to bepublicly evaluated before they can even be considered in theconstitution.
one, should we have a state banksuch as north dakota, the only state that has one. two, should drug use be a rightas in portugal which legalized the personal use of all drugs. three, should instant runoffvoting be in the constitution. should elections be run on anonpartisan basis publicly five, should the right andability of citizens to determine budget, open budgeting beprovided. six, should we abolish stateincome taxes like nine other
states. with fair tax system. what kind of constitutionalamendment process should there be? eight, how many judges levelsshould there be, their names, number of judges, term limits,age limits. nine, we should have a bicameralstate legislature. only nebraska has a unicameralstate legislature. ten, whose rights to be observedand protected?
should corporations and othernonhuman entities, pets, robots, avatars, what could providespecific protection and in conclusion, i hope thecommission will formally take measures to evaluate and assessthe recommendations and suggestions taken into heart. we will likely get only onechance to ratify our state we have a historic opportunityto take the time to do the research and to take fromgovernments around the world the best ideas, practices, policiesand implementations of
government. we are not bound by orrestricted to the past. we have centuries worth ofknowledge of what does not work for most people and thus weshouldn't -- thus what we shouldn't do and now decades ofemerging dollars in research of better and best practices forachieving the best social, economic, environmental andloads of other outcomes through the structure and operation ofgovernment. create ago good constitution ishard and it takes a lot of
wholistic thought, diverseinputs and lots of time creating a bad constitution is mucheasier. >> chair: your time is up. >> my hope is we will take thetime and put the research, resources and outreach intocreating a constitution that a century from now will stand thetest of time. >> chair: carolinaâ selnik, isshe here? cliff smith? and mr.â smith will be followedby lawrence albert and then
jeffrey nolan. >> my name is cliff smith. i figured you all probablyneeded an old radical to talk to i wanted to thank whoever set upthe robo calls i got one from mayor bowser a few days ago.i hope this went out throughout i would hope in october therewill be a robo call to every one of the 670,000 people of d.c. tourge them to vote on this referendum in november. i understand the whole thing ofthe constitution.
i would love to have a radicalconstitution. however, to me the primaryobject is statehood given the non-democratic situation thatdave talked about and others have. somebody mentioned we could haveanother constitutional convention of three years afterwe get statehood. i think that would be a goodidea. i'm from alaska originally. my mother got an award from thestate of alaska for helping to
bring in alaska as a state, 140years before that my mother's family was involved in bringingtexas into the union as a state. i believe that it is in myfamily heritage i should be here today. >> i also think that, yes, it isimportant to reach out to the people of america about gettingstatehood. however, we have to show theenergy this this city to show the rest of the country that wewant statehood. for instance, i thinkemancipation day which is great
every april i think it should beturned into not primarily commemorating what happened in1862 but to commemorate what we are going to bring about. in other words how can you saythat it is great to have emancipation in a colony. it doesn't make sense, does it? we will have true emancipation when we have statehood. i also think that maybe weshould look beyond and gain
victory this year or next yearbut maybe we won't and we should continue an energy for instancemaybe have a referendum every two years just to show that thepeople of america that we do want it, we continue to want itand we always want it. we can't assume that the peopleof d.c. want to, the people of america have to see that we allwant it. i think this energy should be --should be generated. ideal constitutions, there isone in mexico from the revolution of 1910, 100,000words, a lot of people say it is
for the purpose of what mexicomay become. maybe that's the constitution wewill develop but maybe not now. maybe after we get statehood. there is the south africanconstitution which is many people think it is the mostprogressive in the world. we should look to that as anexample but again i assume we have such a progressivedistrict. we always have had for many,many decades now. i assume even if we have aconservative constitution going
forward in november that we aresuch a city that we will make it progressive as time goes on withamendments, et cetera. just in the last few weeks we'vehad $15 a minimum wage pass in the city council. to me we should be proud of thatbut that's the kind of city we are and we've been doing thatkind of stuff for lgbt and for african-americans and for allpeople who live in this city and i have no doubt that we willcontinue to do that and i think the first goal is to getstatehood after that we can open
the doors to everything elsethat we want. oh, by the way, a state song iwill only recommend that the state song after we getstatehood will be the international. >> chair: thank you, mr.â smith.lawrence albert followed by >> good evening, my name islawrence albert. members of the statehoodcommission, thank you for this evening. i have lived in our future statefor 36 years and the future
county of cleveland park for 36years. if the new proposed new columbia constitution is passed, and webecome a state, a long-held dream of mine will come true. i do have one suggestion for asimple amendment that would have a significant and positiveimpact on the new state i propose that the stateelections be nonpartisan elections. not partisan as they currentlyare but proposed to be in the
partisan state elections willcontinue to prevent all approximately 200,000 federalemployees and members of the military in the new state frombeing candidates for state office just as the d.c. partisanelections have prevented them in the district for decades. a nonpartisan election willallow all of the federal employees to consider runningand to run as candidates for state offices. just as nonpartisan electionsaround the nation already do for
those jurisdictions. college park maryland is one ofseveral nearby examples. college park also has a smallcouncil or legislature just as new columbia has proposed in itsconstitution. we have long suffered fromcorruption and similar issues by candidates and office holders inthe district of columbia. increasing the pool of potentialcandidates to include the wider range of experience andbackgrounds that federal employees represent for thestate would instantly improve
the selection of qualitycandidates for all of the new state voters. >> chair: thank you, mr.â albert. jeffrey nolan, is he here? i don't see him here. anice jenkins followed by bonnieloper. and then lee akin. >> thank you so much again fororganizing this.
i really think this isextraordinary. i got involved in the statehoodmovement in 1997. starting stand up for democracyand d.c. coalition which came about because the congress ofthe united states of america took all powers from the localgovernment except for parks and recreation. i was -- i am a nativewashingtonian. i went to local d.c. publicschools. i was shocked.
i had no idea that we were suchpolitical slaves in the nation's capital. when the parks and recreationwas the only thing that we controlled we went down to thewhite house which had at that time a democratic president. we got on the white house fenceand we were arrested and we continued to do civildisobedience, to speak out, to say that statehood from the verybeginning was the only thing that would protect us as fullamerican citizens.
i want to thank the commission,the mayor, our three united states senators and our unitedstates representatives. they are not shadows. i'm looking at them right now. and the chair of the council. i have submitted on behalf ofstand up for democracy and d.c. which is known as free d.c. ourcomments. we do have a lot of commentsabout the constitution and i want everybody here to be awarethat this is a constitutional
convention. i want you to go tostatehood.dc.gov. read that constitution. if you have any comments about it, go online and submit it. this is your right. you were given this paper as adelegate. you may not have a vote. which did disturb me.
i must be honest about that thefact i'm a delegate with no vote does remind me as kesh said ofour delegate who is called by courtesy congresswoman eleanorholmes norton. i would advise if people duringthis time period do not have time to review the constitution,that that be taken off of the referendum. give people time to give sometime of consideration for what they truly want to be in thefuture state of the district of columbia which i love the namebanneker commonwealth.
i want to -- i want all of ourcomments to be considered by the commission who is going to makethe final determination. i want the people of d.c. toknow that you have the power to rise up against the unitedstates congress. i am an african-american woman. i'm a black woman and i knowthat my ancestors rosa and got us free. we're going to have to beresponsible for our own freedom and the people of d.c. are goingto free ourselves.
bonnie loper, is she here? lee akin? miss akin will be followed byirene jolson and then andrew hanesworth. >> first of all i would like tothank the people up there and all of their staff who haveworked so hard to get this issue out before the people. i am not necessarily happy witheverything they are getting out there but i'm glad that theprocess is occurring.
i came to washington, d.c., theday after kennedy was elected. my future husband had come herea few months earlier. my husband was a veteran. he has died. he never has been able to votesince he came there and he never will. my two sons went here to wilsonhigh school. my oldest son did three years ofrotc. he entered the military.
he is still in there. he is in special forces. he fought in gulf war 1. he has had two tours inafghanistan and thank goodness he has not died. because he would never have been able to vote either. i hope he will not die beforeany of us are able to vote and we need to honor i think it is6,000 people from d.c. who have
died over the years in themilitary and never been able to vote and this is absolutelycriminal. talk about abusesanother issue that i'm very concerned about is the fact thatthe new constitution only says we're going to have 13representatives. i think from what i have seen atall of the meetings i have been the people in general do notwant 13. they want to go back to the 40or a similar number that was in the original voted onconstitution of 1982.
i think any effort to put thislanguage in a constitution that people have to vote for innovember could lead to the failure of this effort to get apositive vote on statehood and we need to make sure thatwhatever the vote is in november, and there will beapparently council deliberations on this as well we do not havethat language in there. we need a constitution thatgives balance to the executive, to the legislature and to thejudiciary maintaining an independent attorney general andmaking sure that the mayor does
not have a great deal more powerthan any of the other bodies, and this we have to continue towork for. i like the name of douglasscommonwealth. there are four states that arecommonwealths, including virginia. so that could be a very gooddecision and we were supposed to be talking about funding so iwould like to say one thing with regard to borrowing and the 17%limit and that is that it should include a special mechanism forfunding environmental things
through the property taxmechanism or the income tax mechanism so that we can moveforward on a green city. >> chair: thank you, miss akin. irene jolson. if you would come forward andmiss jolson will be followed by andrew hanesworth and thenantonio garcia. >> good evening, thank you sovery much. it is now 10 of 10:00 so i willtry to speak in less than a minute.
i'm a native washingtonian bornand raised at 17â 15th street northwest so i've had theextraordinary pleasure of seeing washington change and grow anddevelop. and have been involved in statehood for quite some time and thank you so much to those ofyou who mentioned people have gone in the past who are nolonger with us and thanks to you for continuing the process. i'm going to submit writtentestimony. i would like to make two quicksuggestions.
i love the idea of engaginguniversities. if you count broadly theuniversities in the washington d.c. metropolitan area there arenine and engaging all of those students at parents and facultyin the process of getting the word out across the country is awonderful idea and i think we should collaborate all of usshould form a coalition of those universities and engage thestudents who are here this evening and beyond. and there are those of us whowould be happy to do that.
that's for engagement of outsidewashington, d.c. something that is a bitdisturbing to me as someone else mentioned was that there are notmany millennials here and engaging such college studentsin the process leaves out an extraordinarily large number ofmillennials in washington, d.c. and we need to involve them inthe process, the deliberation process and encourage them toparticipate in the voting and those are youth inwashington, d.c., who are not beyond secondary education, whomay have dropped out of schools
and who need to be nonethelessinvolved in the process. i would strongly suggest that wedo that. if there are those in cupsaround the world who are involving youth in democracybuilding and peace building we can certainly do it in thedistrict of columbia. thank you so much. andrew hanesworth and he will befollowed by antonio garcia and then daniel lewis. >> i am andrew hanesworth and iwould like to thank the mayor
for this convention. i was born in ward 7 ofwashington, d.c. i am a graduate of the georgewashington university. and i always wanted statehood. i know that we need statehoodand i'm definitely for changing the name of an unbounding itfrom christopher columbus legacy at all and it should befrederick douglass or the people of anacostia. more specifically, when you getto the point of, you know,
article two of the proposedconstitution i believe that we should have lieutenant governorthat could possibly replace the governor instead of the speakerof the house. and to those that fear that notenough millennials are here i want you to know that we arelistening and we are watching and even if this doesn't passeven though i hope it does and i'm working to make sure that wehave something in 20167 for statehood that things willchange and no matter what d.c. will have statehood.
my name is antonio garcia. thank you for inviting us here. i thought it was yesterday ofthis meeting, this convention. so i went home and i came backtoday. this is i am i am a disabledveteran, latino and a psychiatric social worker andbut not practicing. what i am here for is just totell we're here making history actually. by telling congress enough isenough of taxation without
representation and by the --becoming the 51st state we are going to move forward and we aregoing to provide by doing that, the citizens of our city, thenecessary tools to move forward, to grow, to develop and i willtell congress again stop pimping us because that's what it is. >> when we give $2 billion tocongress and they gave us a penny that's pimping. so we said enough is enough. >> mayor: thank you.
>> thank you, mr.â garcia. daniel lewis? >> oh, a recommendation i'msorry. i think that instead of it wouldbe better to have municipalities and two representatives perward. and i'm from ward 2. >> chair: thank you again. fdr foote? >> i am daniel lewis.
>> chair: excellent. >> my name is daniel and i amsorry for you all but i don't have a constitutionalrecommendation. i'm 19 i haven't really goneinto it to be honest but i am pretty much millennial. i can say from my perspective ididn't really care about this issue until last year. tunnel really the john olivervideo came out and i don't want to overfocus on that as the onlything we can use to push for
this issue but it has to reallybe known that a lot of people in the district themselves don'treally care. we have -- most of us have beenin here stuck in the echo chamber for three hours and itis great because for me i see why i should fight for it, thepeople telling the stories that need to be told. that really i think should betold in front of congress. a lot of these stories ofveterans and people that have experienced statelessness andknow what it is like.
but i do want to actually makethis brief. and just make it known to youall that it is really as it is set up now, everyone in thisroom and really the majority of d.c. i imagine is going to votefor this. i don't think we're going tohave many residents who look at the paper and say i don't wantthat. no matter how educated they areon the issue. so it is up to you guys, thecouncil people, the mayor and the commission to work onperfecting this constitution and
taking what has been said andmaking it so that what will be voted on and voted yes on reallyis something we all want. >> chair: fdr foote? peter [inaudible], if you couldcome forward followed by ann leiko and then thomas hood. >> i'm peter and i'm a residentof ward 7. i have lived in the district ofcolumbia for decades, years. i have favored d.c. statehoodever since i was aware of the issue which is a long time ago.
however, i am very concernedabout the way in which this operation is going. i think the statehood commissionhas made an enormous mega error in attaching the process of aconstitution, a called constitutional convention to theprocess of getting statehood. this is like dragging a heavystone behind you as you run up a hill. it is entirely unnecessary. the so-called tennessee plan isnot embodied in the constitution
nor in the law. it is only a 250-year-old customthing that was done. it certainly doesn't form apattern that we need to follow or that we should follow. i agree with what d.c. fordemocracy has said. that we should be pursuing stoodas such, the constitution should be arrived at by a genuineconstitutional convention called within the new state after webecome a state. i agree with the observation oflee akin that putting this all
together, putting thisconstitution together with the proposal for statehood on theballot may sink the referendum. i think that is actually asubstantial likelihood. it is totally unnecessary and itis making the statehood process frankly into a farce. i hope that we can do better. i hope that the so-called newcolumbia statehood commission which raises the issue of thename again will rethink this matter and drop the wholeprocess of attaching a
constitution, get us tostatehood as such and also seriously rethink the name. new columbia is also dragging alot of bad history into the name of the state. i don't think it is a very goodidea to name it for a person. i think that anacostia andpotomac are two good candidates. there are probably others. but a name that follows theoriginal in habitants of where we live is probably a good idea.
i think that we do have to havea name to go with the proposed legislation so that matter doesneed to get attention but the constitution doesn't. ann leiko followed by thomas hood and guy durant. >> i think i'm going to turnthis way. because you are the ones whohave the vote and we don't. i'm ann lieko amount i've beenworking for statehood since i first learned how we can do itfrom sam smith who wrote the
case for statehood almost 46years ago in june of 1970. i would like to urge thecommission and particularly the chairman and the mayor to fundthis effort and that means fund our statehood delegation, thatmeans probably that means salaries for them which is ifyou are thinking tennessee plans and it means to fund theeducation effort. all of the things we've beentalking about for decades but with pennies it is time that ourgovernment that represents us if you really care about statehoodputs our money where our mouth
is. i also want to just go throughsome comments i've been getting a lot of calls from people allover the city concerned about the constitution and what isgoing on and i would like to say that i concur with everythingthat d.c. for democracy stated that it should be a referendumaveraging our desire for statehood and if we want to addanything to it would be an election of delegates for astatehood constitutional convention to be held in early2017.
it is very clear from all of thecomments you've received and i read the log that you've doneand there are a lot of really sensitive and sensible commentson what we should do and they need to be debated by the peopleand the people need to have a vote on the issues in theprocess of putting together a constitution or revisedconstitution and that's what we need to be doing plus educatingboth all of the new people in the district of columbia and thepeople around the nation about what our issues are.
the paper i just handed you hassome of the issues that were supposed to be discussed todaythings like i agree there shouldn't be a line item veto, ihad a question why we have in the constitution that there hasto be an administrator or chief operating officer. why that isn't an issue for thegovernor as to how the governor wants to organize theiradministration. that it should make the governorthe commander of our national guard, the president is now andthat will take a legislative
change. missing from the constitutionare all of the independent agencies. and how they are to be and thoseare things like the board of elections and ethics, the officeof people's counsel they need to be your regulatory agencies whoshould not be in the executive branch under the governor. same way that the constitutiontries to put the elected attorney general in theexecutive branch.
the fact i looked up thelegislation and the initiative that created the office and itwas to give the attorney general independence that was going tobe elected and it should not -- the attorney general is not inthe executive branch. the same thing i would say forthe state board of education should be seen as an independentagency outside of the executive branch and i suggest that it --the size of it be enlarged and there are powers enumerated inthe constitution. >> chair: your time hasexpired.
you are about a minute over. >> do i get three or five? i'm representing anorganization. d.c. statehood yes, we can. >> chair: three minutes but youspoke the other night as well. >> all you are saying by doingthis is this is not a real that we are not real delegatesand that our views really don't matter when you don't wantsubstantive comments to be presented and you are limitingpeople to three minutes on a
constitution that you arerushing through and asking us to vote on, and i agree with theearlier comment you are probably pushing it to be defeated ifthat is the way you are going to handle this. because what i actually am oneof the people who read the constitution and read all of thesections and actually have reasonable comments about thesubstance of the provisions and the pieces that are missing. i was almost finished too.
>> chair: it is helpful that you have a written statement. there are about 15 more maybeten more people after you and it is now 5 after 10:00 in theevening so i think you have spoken for about five minutesnow. >> okay well, it just shows that theconstitution convention is not. >> chair: thomas hood followedby guy durant. is mr.â hood here?
>> that's me. >> good evening, my name isthomas hood. born and raised here in thedistrict of columbia. for the first three years of mylife was spent in the hospital for sick children on bunker hillroad east. i was born with water on thebrain. the first three years of my lifewas spent at the hospital and yes this should be a state. all major decisions are madehere in washington, d.c.
all other cities and states mustfollow. i have been here all of my life. i just got housing throughcommunity connections. been with them for a year now. i'm not pleased with where i amat but i'm still in that housing until i move to my first littleapartment. however, congress has done onething for this city when they closed lorton down. i have seen so much blood shedin my lifetime.
that's the only thing they everdid was when they closed lorton down. now what they need to do is giveus represent in congress. we need that more than anythingin this world. i ask you to please give that tous as it should be. >> chair: thank you, mr.â hood.guy durant? and you will be followed by rickribeck who will be followed by i believe it is heronâ naged. >> i'm going to try to face bothdirections.
i'm going this way because iwant to talk to you and the audience. two faces because we got to lookat all sides i want to talk about two sides my name is guydurant and i live in ward 5 and i bring greetings also fromplymouth congressional united church of christ where reverendhagler is our senior minister and in our church they teach usto speak truth to power. we spoke to article 1 on mondayand today is about article 2, the executive branch and article4 the budget and financial
management and article 5 aboutborrowing. so one of the things i want tosay off of the bat when rosa came here, i thought sherepresents donald trump a lot of us are democrats, i'm ademocrat, a bernie sanders supporter but just the fact thatit is not political any more. it is moral. this is a civil rights movement. we have allies across thespectrum. we need allies from all sectorsand spectrums, so you know, the
nonpartisanship ideas that willcome out is very important because we need republicans anddemocrats the rest of the country doesn'twant to just see oh, this is a democrat issue. oh, this is a partisan issue orpolitical. no, it is a civil rights issue. this is like free mandela, thisshould be going to the un, the united nations. when the other lady was talkingabout this is a civil rights
issue and there are treatiesthat's a lawsuit, you know, when you are talking about suingcongress what about for violation of a treaty because ifwe are covered under a treaty that we are supposed to be givencivil rights in other countries for instance a lot of us we havecatholic university here and we have a large presence ofcatholics and the pope is also a governor of a city state therein vatican city. what about getting all of thenational governors together and getting them to make anendorsement saying that our
mayor should be, you know, idon't know if you sit on the national governor's associationor not but you could be at least there waiting and waiting theycould get behind you and all of the democratic governors couldsay you're going to sit on the national governor's associationall of the mayors of the city across they could writeresolutions to their congressmen so it could be a movement. let's not think in terms ofpolitical but in terms of movement so the collegestudents, yes, very important
because like we said we want allof the grassroots out there to come along. i was thinking when we come tocontracting in the budget we give preference to veterans andto d.c. natives. i'm a d.c. native. what if we told our contractorsyou will get a preference based on the percentage of giving thatyou give to the d.c. statehood movement so if you give 1% tothe d.c. statehood commission for advertising you will get a1% preference on your bidding of
contracts. you have to look at thoseinnovative ways to fund this because you may be limited inhow you can fund but what if you gave preference in contractingto those who support statehood. what if we asked all of ournonprofits, aarp, aaa, our veterans groups and sports teamswhen we are signing other deals we just had pepco and excelexelon but did we ask them to support statehood? i don't know but i'm saying thati haven't seen them send out
anything saying they supportshould. are we asking our diplomaticcommunity to support statehood. >> chair: mr.â durant? >> i understand i'm out of timebut it has to be a movement and the bible says thatrighteousness exalts a nation. sin is a reapproach of anypeople and we have to get rid of the original sin of colonialismhere in d.c. by asking everybody to see this as a civil rightsmovement and where is jesse jackson on this?
>>' thank you, mr.â durant. rick rybeck followed by heronnaged and then john pinkus. my name is rick rybeck, thedirector of a consulting firm that assists communities inharmonizing economic incentives with public policy objectives. i got my start working for heldamason on the city council and have worked in the d.c.government for a number of years before starting this firm i'mwith. i want to thank all of you onthe dais and all of the
volunteers and contractors whomade tonight possible and i want to thank everybody in theaudience and those who are taking time at home to watchthis on tv. it is an important issue. we're here tonight to talk aboutamong other things the budget issues. and article 4 has section 5which requires a balanced budget and having a balanced budget isimportant. but how a important raisesrevenue is just as important as
how much revenue is raised. and just to put it in simpleterms, most of us pay for water and sewer with a per gallon fee. the more we drink the more weflush, the more we pay. so it is easy to understand. it seems fair and there areinteresting consequences because when i have a leaky faucet idon't just see water going down the drain but i see my moneygoing down the drain and that encourages me to fix my leakyfaucet so there are commendable
things about user fees. we could pay for water and sewerwith a sales tax. i mean sales taxes raise lots ofmoney and we could do that. but if we paid for water andsewer with a sales tax would it have any relationship to howmuch water we're consuming and how many toilets we're flushing? it wouldn't and if i had a leakyfaucet would i be inspired to fix it? would i go out and buy a pair ofshoes i didn't want just to
compensate the water and sewerauthority for the water i was wasting? probably not. so i just want, i think it isimportant that there is something in here that talksabout how we raise money as much as how much we raise. and i've talked about user feesbut there is more to it than that so for example a vacantlot. people who own vacant lots arenot drinking any water and
flushing any toilets, shouldthey pay anything to the water and sewer authority? well, as it turns out the valueof the vacant lot is higher because their water and sewerpipes at the edge. much higher than it would be ifthey weren't there. so the value of the vacant lotis related to the value of the public goods and services thatare provided. so in addition to user feesthere needs to be access fees or value capture and if we did getthe right balance between access
fees and user fees we can makeour city work better in terms of creating incentives for employment, affordable housingand environmental enhancement. i have details here but in theinterest of time i will submit those in writing but thank youvery much and i appreciate what you are doing. >> chair: thank you,mr.â ribeck. john pinkus? laura fukes?
ann wilcox? while you are coming up let me repeat those names. [names called] >> thank you very much,mr.â chairman, madam mayor and thank you all for staying outthis evening. i appreciate the chance to juststand up and speak during the i did speak at one of the townhalls last week and gave a few substantive comments about theconstitution.
in particular adding to thepreamble, the possibility of a right to privacy which you mightwant to include in the preamble and repeating some of thecomments that have already been made about the size of thelegislature and so forth so i won't repeat that. i did want to stand as a memberof the statehood green party and review a little bit of thathistory briefly. the statehood party was foundedin the early 70s by julius hobson, hilda mason, josephinebutler and others who have stood
over this since the early 70sfor full statehood and political rights for the districtresidents. however, the many have joinedthat fight over the years. walter fontroy had aconstitutional amendment in the late '70s which was which hetried to get through the requisite number of states andthat would have provided two senators and a votingrepresentative. we also reverend jesse jacksonwas mentioned a few minutes ago by one of the speakers in the'90s he was the first shadow
senator which was part of thestatehood delegation, the shadow delegation we still have todayand he tried very hard to get the idea of statehood before therainbow coalition through groups like national organization forwomen, other national membership organizations to try to do anational campaign around unfortunately he didn't get usover the finish line either but hopefully with all of theefforts that are coming together around the mayor's proposal wecan move the ball forward. i also want to mention kim perryand the d.c. vote which the
statehood party is sometimesdiffered with d.c. vote because they just, you know, promotedvoting rights but i think in recent years d.c. vote was alsovery strongly in support of so again i would also call foras jamie raskin mentioned earlier getting out in thestreets, maybe have a moral monday regular march every week,every month something that we can all join together which willgive more media and more attention to the issue. so thank you again, madam mayor,for bringing this forward.
>> chair: thank you, misswilcox. that concludes all of those whosigned up. now, we will be reconveningtomorrow. what is that? [inaudible]. >> chair: what did you sign upon? >> chair: why don't you comeforward and identify yourself. >> thank you to the panel andalso to those of you who have survived the evening.
my name is leanne nurse and i'ma resident of the district since 1998. active in my faith community,the buddhist at 34th and massachusetts and we've welcomedmany of you to our interfaith activities. i work at the environmentalprotection agency and i've been employed there since 1989. my educational background is inconflict engagement and analysis and therefore i'm speaking to adifferent section of the
constitution and i understandwhat people are saying about delaying the constitution but ihave a sense that there may be some progress. the article 7 section 1 onopenness and transparency talks about a sort of vague principleson openness and transparency and i think we are experiencing someof that tension tonight but dr.â cornelius kerwin thepresident of american university has talked about participationand accountability as two of the pillars of effective governance,so at whatever point the
constitution comes to lifewhether this year or next i'm going to encourage the panel toconsider incorporating core values of public participation. in my service in this area, ihave served on the boards of the international association forpublic participation and also the national coalition fordialogue and deliberation. so for the last 40 years i havebeen trying to create effective participation for bothgovernment and nongovernmental organizations designed.
the epa policy on public partsasian and other federal agencies and for nonprofit organizations. i will be submitting additionalreferences online and what i suggest that the panel consideris a document which we worked with the american barassociation and several other organizations called makingparticipation legal. so rather than tortureyourselves about how to do it, it is all written in here.
it is written by experts, bothlawyers and nonlawyers and it will help guide the new state inwhichever form and whatever name we call it to actually create asituation in which all of the members of the community feelthat they have a voice and that they are welcome in thisconversation. so imagine if you get up onemorning and your partner has spent all of the money in yourjoint bank account without telling you. you didn't have anyparticipation.
so we want a condition wherebythose of us who live here can actually participate in thedecision making and therefore make it common practice and notjust common sense. >> good evening, statehoodcommissioners and neighbors. i am mark multin and i wasarrested alongside mayor bowser and many others in this crucialcause to liberate d.c. if we were to win this battle wewill only do it by bridging entrenched divisions although ilost my bid for u.s. rep to my honorable friend mr.â garcia in2014, i was nonetheless the top
libertarian vote getter in thedistrict. supported many democrats,republicans, fellow cyclists and our brothers and sisters in thelgbt community. i have used that to successfullyadvocate to liberate d.c. among conservatives including newfriends top scholars at the conservative mees institute. i agree with my brilliantbrother josh burch that douglass commonwealth should beconsidered as the new state name.
when i mention the hypocrisy ofour government fighting numerous wars in foreign countries topush u.s. democracy on those who don't want it, at the point of agun while denying it to u.s. citizens in the district whoeagerly advocate for it i receive loud applause from aroomful of conservatives. a few months ago, when ipersonally spoke with libertarian nominee forpresident governor gary johnson he reiterated his support ford.c. statehood which he supported in his 2012presidential bid.
if the polls -- if he polls highenough and democrats and republicans don't rig the systemto silence minority and third and permit him to participate inthe national debates i'm certain governor johnson will make d.c.statehood a part of any national discussion on stage when thecameras are rolling among many other issues that have beenignored by the establishment candidates. d.c. statehood is not just aliberal issue. it is a small governmentlibertarian and conservative
cause. libertarians want to keep thefederal government out of local government policies and out ofmeddling in our private lives. i think the size of an elected new state body should be keptsmall and restricted by term limits. libertarians are upset that ourdemocrat president in the name of democracy uses our taxdollars to massacre thousands of innocent people overseas who areno threat to us while enriching
those in the military gun andweapons industries. there is delegate nortonrecently confirmed mr.â obama has on numerous occasions used hisweekly address to advocate for illegal and unconstitutionalwars in other nations while never once using his address toeducate and inform voters across the nation about the injusticesand immorality of denying the citizens who are his immediateneighbors full democracy and equality with their friends andfamilies in the 50 states. i urge my democrat friends andneighbors not to think
myopically. the nation has not elected apresident who advocates for war in several decades so you shouldplan accordingly and not be blind sided as so manywashington insiders have been in the past year. if voters outside the beltwayelect the candidate advocating for peace and spending our taxdollars in focusing on the needs of american citizens. mr.â moltin.
you were the 45th witness tospeak tonight. i want to thank everybody forattending tonight and all of those who spoke for taking thetime and speaking out. we will have the third sessiontomorrow morning starting at 9:00 in this room. so we will see some of you againmaybe and i hope some new voices as well. so again i want to thankeverybody. >> [inaudible].
>> chair: talk with us after. you had your chance, sir.
>> mayor: hold on, sir. >> chair: but you can speak toone of us afterwards. now the time is about 10:30 andso we will adjourn this meeting and reconvene tomorrow at 9:00.
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