
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, May 20, 1990                   TAG: 9005210211
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: F3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CAL THOMAS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

STATEHOOD WOULD REWARD D.C.'S INCOMPETENCE

SENS. Paul Simon, D-Ill., and Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., are co-sponsoring a bill that would make the District of Columbia the 51st state. But D.C. is already a state - a state of confusion, of corruption, of decay. It is also in a state of paralysis, thanks to its mayor, Marion Barry, who faces trial next month on 14 charges related to his alleged use of illegal drugs.

Elevating the nation's capital to full statehood in its current condition would reward an appalling amount of misfeasance and malfeasance that extends beyond the mayor's office throughout the D.C. government.

It also would do little more than provide a free ride for Jesse Jackson, who would love the platform of the U.S. Senate.

According to a newly released Senate Judiciary Committee report, as many as one out of every 30 D.C. residents is a regular user of cocaine, compared with about one out of 40 in New York state and Nevada and one of every 100 nationwide. Violent crime is so bad in D.C. that the Pentagon has determined it could find no better place than the streets of Washington to train its military doctors in how to dress combat wounds.

The Simon-Kennedy bill would create a South African-type solution in the District by carving out a "federal enclave" that would include all federal property (office buildings, monuments and memorials, etc.) and allow the rest of the city (mostly poor neighborhoods, with the exception of the prosperous Northwest section) to become a state.

Under the bill, the mayor would become a governor, the City Council would be transformed into a state legislature, there would be one voting member sent to the House of Representatives (the current member is a non-voting delegate), and D.C. would have two senators.

"Gov. Marion Barry" is even more frightening than Mayor Marion Barry.

Not only is statehood a bad idea because of the enormous levels of crime, corruption, cronyism and crack cocaine, it is also a bad idea for practical reasons.

James Madison argued for direct federal control of the capital city, saying: "Those who are most adjacent to the seat of Legislation will always possess advantages over others. An earlier knowledge of the laws, a greater influence in enacting them, better opportunities for anticipating them, and a thousand other circumstances will give a superiority to those who are thus situated." D.C. statehood would give residents an unfair advantage over every other state.

The Founders counterbalanced the District's inherent influence as a city by depriving Washingtonians of direct representation. Still, the small cities of Alexandria, Georgetown and Washington developed separate city councils. Washington's mayor was appointed by the president.

In 1871, Congress abolished the municipal governments and established a territorial government, with a governor and an upper legislative house appointed by the president and a popularly elected lower house. There was a non-voting delegate in the U.S. House. But three years later, in the face of corruption and debt (sound familiar?), the territorial government was abolished.

Since 1878, according to Congressional Quarterly, 150 plans for D.C. representation in Congress have been introduced. In 1976, statehood proponents tried a constitutional amendment. It managed to win the approval of only 16 of the 38 states needed for ratification.

Backers of statehood now say that Congress can make D.C. a state without an amendment.

If District residents want the privileges of statehood, they should back one of several proposals that would return the city to the state of Maryland (Virginia, which had donated part of its land for the federal city, asked for its share to be returned in 1846, a share that has prospered as Arlington County).

Maryland Gov. William Donald Schaefer has said he has no objection to re-absorbing the District into his state. At least Maryland seems to do better at fixing potholes and removing snow from the streets than the D.C. government.

Advocates of D.C. statehood will try to make it a racial issue because of D.C.'s 71 percent black population, but it is not a racial issue. It is a political issue and ought to be debated as such.

No one has argued it better than James Madison and no one has come up with a better reason for keeping things as they are. Los Angeles Times Syndicate

by CNB