CHARLESTON — West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey joined 22 attorneys general in writing to President Biden and congressional leadership raising legal concerns to Washington, D.C., statehood as proposed in Congress.
“If this Congress passes and President Biden signs this Act into law, we will use every legal tool at our disposal to defend the United States Constitution and the rights of our States from this unlawful effort to provide statehood to the District of Columbia,” Morrisey joined in writing.
The attorneys general argue that the nation’s founders set forth specific guidelines for the size and authority of the District of Columbia. They contend making it a state would require amending the Constitution — not simply passing a bill as the Biden administration wants to do.
Morrisey
"Not only does Congress lack the authority to create an entirely new state out of the District, but it also does not have the authority to reduce the size of the District to the equivalent of a few federal buildings and surrounding parks," the letter states.
The coalition further argues that few people outside of Washington, D.C., take seriously the notion that residents of the District of Columbia are somehow disenfranchised or not adequately supported by Congress. The coalition says, if allowed to take effect, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act would create a super-state with unrivaled political power.
"We assure you that we will challenge any attempt to provide the District of Columbia with the actual benefits of statehood if Congress passes it and the President attempts to sign it into law," the letter states. "Its enactment would be antithetical to our representative democratic republic, and it would constitute an unprecedented aggrandizement of an elite ruling class with unparalleled power and federal access compared to the existing fifty states in the Union. ...
"Providing statehood would create a state that would not be one among equals, but rather, a super-state that would have primacy over all others."
West Virginia signed on to the South Carolina-, Georgia-, Louisiana- and Texas-led letter with the attorneys general of Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Utah.