Noah Feldman, Columnist

D.C. Statehood Could Backfire on Senate Democrats

Killing the filibuster is one thing, but pushing through a new state on a party-line vote would be quite another.

March 24, 2021 at 3:00 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser testifies at a House hearing on statehood. — Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser testifies at a House hearing on statehood.
Photographer: Carlos Barria/Getty Images/Getty Images North America

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House Democrats are poised to vote for Washington, D.C. statehood. As in the past, the proposal is being met with total Republican opposition. What’s different this time is that a growing number of Democrats aren’t ready to accept the Republican “no” as final. If Senate Democrats kill the filibuster, the party could admit D.C. as a state and thus seat two new, presumably Democratic senators.

The filibuster lets Republicans block D.C. statehood even if, as Senator Joe Manchin has suggested, the rule is tweaked so that a senator actually has to keep talking — like Jimmy Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” The prospect of D.C. statehood would certainly motivate Republicans to new levels of verbal stamina.