DC Statehood a No Go.

If it were the Hamilton Program in charge, the chances of Statehood for the residents of the District of Columbia would be slim. In an informal showing of hands conducted at the end of tonight's debate, 10 of the 11 audience members sided with the opposition, citing a number of reasons as to why the Nation's Capital should not be granted statehood. Among them were the following:

-DC's adding of Democrats to Congress (2 in the Senate, 1 in the House)
-DC's lack of economic stability.
-DC's status as a small, urban center rather than a larger, more varied area
-DC doesn't feel like a state.

Although the arguments for statehood were not accepted, I do think the results affirmed the pro-statehood side's position that the motives for denying statehood are rooted in partisanship and discrimination and that these, as opposed to precedent and procedure of the past, are what keep the full rights enumerated by statehood from being granted to the 600,000 disenfranchised Americans in the Nation's Capitol.