Hi Indivisibles, 

Welcome to the Independence Day 2020 edition of our monthly newsletter! We
write these letters to share with you what we’re thinking and what we’re
hearing from Indivisible groups around the country. As always, feel free
to reach out directly to us by Twitter: [ [link removed] ]@ezralevin and [ [link removed] ]@leahgreenb.

Independence Day in America’s Capitol

D.C. held its first convention to draft a state constitution in
preparation for admission as a state nearly forty years ago. It took
another decade, but the House of Representatives finally held a vote on
D.C. statehood in 1993. The proposal went down in flames -- Democrats and
Republicans alike voted against it. Undeterred, advocates including
Eleanor Holmes Norton -- D.C.’s nonvoting member of Congress -- have
introduced a D.C. statehood bill in every single Congress since then. But
the legislation never got enough support to get a vote in the House.

Times change -- or rather, times are changed. Prompted by the historic,
inspiring, powerful nationwide Black Lives Matter protests following the
murder of George Floyd -- and Trump’s appalling use of the military to
occupy Washington D.C. in response -- Democratic leaders in the House
moved forward on the D.C. statehood bill. Last week, for the first time in
history, the House passed a bill that would make Washington, D.C. the 51st
state in the union. The new state would be admitted as the state of
Washington, Douglass Commonwealth -- named after famed abolitionist and
civil rights leader Frederick Douglass. 

Why is D.C. statehood a response at all to nationwide Black Lives Matter
protests? To answer that question, you’ve got to ask another: why does a
geographic area in America with more residents than two states, and that
pays more federal taxes than 22 states, lack any voting representation in
Congress?

The answer to that question goes back long before that first D.C. state
constitution draft. You could of course go all the way back to the
founding of the country, but let’s jump to 1890. In that year, a southern
conservative Senator gave a speech to explain why Congress chose to
disenfranchise D.C. residents at the precise moment that the Black
population was becoming a political force in the District. The full quote
is worth a read:

"Now, the historical fact is simply this, that the negroes came into this
District from Virginia and Maryland and from other places...they came in
here and they took possession of a certain part of the political power of
this District...and there was but one way to get out...and that was to
deny the right of suffrage entirely to every human being in the District
and have every office here controlled by appointment instead of by
election...in order to get rid of this load of negro suffrage that was
flooded in upon them. This is the true statement. History cannot be
reversed. No man can misunderstand it."

Those are the words written into the congressional record. No one can
misunderstand it.

Fast forward 130 years.

After the House passed the D.C. statehood bill last week, another southern
Senator took the floor of the U.S. Senate to discuss voting rights for
D.C. residents. Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas explained why Wyoming’s
overwhelmingly white population of 578,000 should have two senators, while
D.C.’s majority Black and brown population of 705,000 should have zero
senators. Wyoming, he pointed out, "has three times as many workers in
mining, logging and construction." 

Huh? But it wasn’t just the lack of lumberjacks in D.C. that bothered
Cotton. He went on to [ [link removed] ]call into question the competence of two Black
D.C. mayors: "Would you trust Mayor Bowser to keep Washington safe if she
were given the powers of a governor? Would you trust Marion Barry?"

This isn’t subtle. Cotton’s message was loud and clear. No one should
misunderstand it.

Now, Tom Cotton’s speech was mostly just bombast and bluster. He didn’t
need to even give the speech, because he knows perfectly well that as long
as Mitch McConnell serves as Senate Majority Leader, D.C. statehood will
never even come to a vote in the Senate. Last year McConnell took to the
Senate floor to describe D.C. statehood as [ [link removed] ]"full-bore socialism."

This isn’t complicated. [ [link removed] ]Trump tweets videos of his supporters shouting
“white power” and his supporters in the Senate block enfranchisement of
hundreds of thousands of Black voters. 

D.C. statehood may have felt like a far-away dream even a few months ago.
But the Democratic House has now signaled its support. The Democratic
senators have signaled their support. Joe Biden has signaled his support.
If we build a Democratic trifecta this November, we could be welcoming
D.C. to the Union as soon as next year. It’s the right thing to do. And
it’s long -- like a hundred years plus -- overdue.

What are your thoughts on D.C. statehood?

One of the things we love about these newsletters is that it’s not all a
one-way street -- we get to get your thoughts on issues of the day too,
which helps inform our thinking as we lead Indivisible at the national
level. So this week, we want to hear: [ [link removed] ]what do you think about D.C.
statehood? Happy to hear your thoughts on self-determination for Puerto
Rico and the other U.S. territories as well! [ [link removed] ]Please let us know here --
and we’ll read through all your responses before the next newsletter.

What we’re reading

In honor of this momentous event, we’ve been re-reading [ [link removed] ]Dream City, a
sweeping history of politics, power, and racism in D.C. (and it’s where we
got that 1890 anecdote). From it, you’ll also learn that congressional
leaders sent a truckload of watermelons to D.C.’s first Black mayor when
he submitted his first budget request. 

For a quick read, Indivisible’s Director of Democracy Policy Meagan
Hatcher-Mays ([ [link removed] ]she’s on Twitter here!) co-wrote [ [link removed] ]an op-ed with us
last year on the role of D.C. statehood in fixing serious problems with
the U.S. Senate.

As mentioned above, Mitch McConnell is a sworn enemy of D.C. statehood,
and if he winds up as Minority Leader next year, he will use the power of
the minority to filibuster any D.C. statehood bill to death. Even if we
defeat him, his replacement GOP doppelganger Minority Leader will attempt
the same. Former Obama speechwriter David Litt has [ [link removed] ]an educational new
article on the true origins of the filibuster -- and how it’s been used by
segregationists and white nationalists for more than a century to stop
progress. Litt is also out with a new funny, engaging book on democracy
and democracy reform: [ [link removed] ]Democracy in One Book or Less. 

Mitch McConnell is one of the gravest modern threats to American
democracy, but if you’re interested in going deeper on the origins of his
brand of extremist, institution-wrecking partisan warfare, you might be
interested in Julian Zelizer’s new book on Newt Gingrich, [ [link removed] ]Burning Down
the House. Zelizer is an American political historian by training, but
this is no stuffy academic book. He knows how to tell a story -- and this
is quite a story to tell.

Until next month

It’s hard to believe we’re halfway through 2020. It feels like we’ve
crammed several lifetimes into these six months, and at the same time, it
feels like we’ve lived them all in a blink of an eye. And history seems to
be coming at us faster and faster. Four months from now, we believe we’ll
be celebrating an incoming Democratic trifecta and preparing to fight for
D.C. statehood and democracy reforms to make our government a government
that’s truly of, by, and for the people. 

That’s not blind faith -- it’s a faith rooted in what we see with our own
eyes from the Indivisible groups we talk to around the country every
single week. We take nothing about the future for granted, but we see the
power you’re building in rural, urban, suburban, exurban communities. In
red, blue, and purple states we see this grassroots force is relentless,
unyielding, and growing. And while the unending onslaught of natural
catastrophe and Trump-manufactured disaster may seem destined to define
2020 -- we believe 2020 will ultimately be defined by you and this
nationwide movement of grassroots activists standing together,
indivisible, in their own communities. Together we will win.

In solidarity,
Ezra & Leah
Co-founders & Co-Executive Directors, Indivisible

 

P.S. Thanks for all the well wishes from the news that we’re expecting our
first child! Leah is now 24 weeks in, and everything seems to be
developing just fine. [ [link removed] ]Here’s a photo Ezra took of the 22-week
ultrasound last week!

[ [link removed] ][IMG]

[ [link removed] ][IMG]

[ [link removed] ][IMG]



You can unsubscribe from this mailing list at any time:
[link removed]