Ankit Jain bursts out laughing when I ask him if he wants to be a modern-day founding father. If we ever had to create the 51e State of the Union, he could nevertheless have a part of paternity recognized.
The 31-year-old lawyer is in the middle of the electoral campaign, but before going to shake hands at the public market, he comes to sit down to have a chai with me at the Seylou bakery, on rue N.
On Tuesday, Democrats in the District of Columbia will choose the candidate for the nomination for one of the two senatorial positions from the City of Washington.
“Ghost” senator, because even though the city has 672,000 inhabitants, the people of “DC” have no representative in Congress, nor in the lower house, nor in the Senate. They can vote for the presidency, but that’s it.
Jain grew up in suburban Fairfax, Virginia. He moved to Washington after studying law at Columbia University.
PHOTO YVES BOISVERT, THE PRESS
Ankit Jain advocates for the District of Columbia to become the 51ste State
By crossing the Potomac, I lost my right to vote in Congress. My friends, my neighbors, my family: we pay taxes, but our opinion does not count, no one votes the laws in our name, and in my opinion, that is shameful.
Ankit Jain, candidate for nomination for one of the two positions of senator from Washington
The debate is almost as old as the US Constitution, which created this federal territory from land ceded by Maryland and Virginia. But it is gaining momentum little by little.
Since 1990, the city has elected a representative and two “shadow” senators (Pastor Jesse Jackson was one of them), who try to promote local issues, without the right to vote.
PHOTO J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE, ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
Protesters demanding statehood for the District of Columbia, March 2021
In 2016, in a referendum organized by the City, 85.7% of residents voted “yes” to the transformation of this territory into a state.
“We would be the smallest in size, but there would be two states with fewer populations than us,” Jain points out. Wyoming has not quite 600,000 people and Vermont has almost 650,000.
The idea of locating the capital on neutral ground seemed obvious to the drafters of the Constitution. One of the reasons was the need for an independent security service of the states. In 1783, unrest broke out in Philadelphia, the old capital, while members of Congress were meeting. Alexander Hamilton himself had to go to parley with the soldiers who held the seat of Congress to demand their pay. Congress then wandered through several cities before returning to Philadelphia, to write the final version of the Constitution in 1787. There were other considerations for establishing a neutral federal “district” outside of interstate disputes, but historians say lawmakers’ concern for physical security played a determining role.
Washington himself chose the site, at the confluence of the Potomac and the Anacostia River, and appointed a Pierre Charles L’Enfant to draw the – very French – plans for the city. George Washington never sat there, and probably did not imagine that the city would become so populous.
Ironically, 238 years after the unrest in Philadelphia, it is also a riot in Congress which has just given new impetus to the project of nationalization of Washington.
“When there was the January 6 riot at the Capitol, the mayor of Washington couldn’t even call the national guard to prevent the violence (she is under federal orders), underlines Jain. However, the DC police were the first responders to intervene and several officers were seriously injured. So they were risking their lives to protect members of a Congress in which they have no votes. »
This injustice, and the fact of seeing DC become militarized for a year, made it possible to concretely understand the issue.
Ankit Jain
The fight for a fairer democracy does not stop at the limits of Washington for Ankit Jain. He works as legal advisor for the organization FairVote, which attempts to ensure better representation throughout the United States. The group is campaigning for a preferential voting system: the voter votes for several candidates in order of preference, which favors the most consensual candidates.
PHOTO YVES BOISVERT, THE PRESS
Sign of a group campaigning for a preferential voting system
“I help write bills. The system exists in Alaska, New York, Maine, Oregon and things are moving forward in the Boston City Council.
“I worked at the Sierra Club because environmental issues matter to me, but I realized that all issues are blocked because our democratic system does not work properly and people are not adequately represented. »
Surprisingly, a simple act of Congress is enough to create a new state. Most states that have been added over the years first had their “shadow” representatives or senators, who are actually lobbyists for their territory.
Once a state is a member, it cannot be ejected by a subsequent vote.
In the famous Texas secession case of 1864, the Supreme Court wrote that “the act which consummated the admission of the State is more than an agreement” but its “final” and “indissoluble” incorporation. – except by a revolution or the consent of other States.
Dozens of bills have been introduced over the years to state D.C., with growing support. When the House of Representatives was majority Democratic, in 2021 and 2022, a bill to create the state of “Washington Douglass Columbia” was passed. Douglass as the abolitionist activist Frederick Douglass, who lived in Washington. And Columbia for the feminine symbol of the American nation, the equivalent of the French Marianne, which would keep the D and the C of DC
The Senate blocked the bill. For the Republicans, the idea of bringing into the Union two new senators who are most likely Democrats is not very attractive. “This is not a partisan issue, it is a question of principle,” argues Jain.
“I believe it will happen in the near future,” he said.
The issue is also “very personal” for Ankit Jain. He was told hundreds of times how his parents, Indian immigrants, slept in front of the Immigration office to get their work permit.
“They worked very hard to get the right to vote, I lost it crossing a bridge, I want it back. »