CT Blue

There may be something to the “Ivory Tower” thing:

Dozens of legal scholars have come together for a new letter to congressional leaders detailing why "there is no constitutional barrier" to D.C. statehood legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last month and federal lawmakers should not avoid establishing a 51st state "because of meritless threats of litigation."

"As scholars of the United States Constitution, we write to correct claims that the D.C. Admission Act is vulnerable to a constitutional challenge in the courts," says the letter (pdf), first reported on Monday by NBC News and addressed to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

It is legal to allow the State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth—the name proposed by House-approved H.R. 51, in honor of abolitionist Frederick Douglass—to enter the union through a congressional joint resolution, "just like the 37 other states that have been admitted since the Constitution was adopted," the letter continues.

"Furthermore, Congress’s exercise of its express constitutional authority to decide to admit a new state is a classic political question, which courts are highly unlikely to interfere with, let alone attempt to bar," the letter notes.

Reading the above made me think that these people have had their heads in their books reading old case law while being blissfully ignorant of the real world around them.

I’m not saying they’re wrong on the law, and they’re certainly not as far off base as the Harvard Law Professor who thought that he could get a popular vote constitutional amendment by getting the court to rule that it was legal for electors to vote for anyone, rather than the presidential candidate to whom their vote was pledged.

I’ve written about this issue here and here, and I won’t repeat myself too much, but suffice to say that under the present Supreme Court precedent, logic and reason are totally irrelevant. If there are five “justices” that want to keep Joe Manchin in power, then they will find a way to declare DC statehood unconstitutional. This court is beyond even caring about its reputation in the legal community. It’s aim is to hand the country over to a permanent Republican “majority” and DC statehood would interfere with that.

I was especially amused by the claim that the court would decline to interfere because DC statehood is a “political question”. The “political question” dodge has typically been used by courts to decline to interfere with legislation they like, even though it’s constitutionally suspect. The present Supreme Court used the political question dodge when it legalized partisan and racist gerrymandering recently. You can bet your bottom dollar that case would have turned out differently had the gerrymandering been done by politicians with a D after their names. If this court wants to prevent DC statehood it will brush the “political question” argument aside and proceed to write an elaborate fictional history proving that our sainted Founding Fathers would be aghast at the prospect of enfranchising a largely black electorate.

Now, to be fair, these law professors may be just as cynical as me and fully realize the chances are slim that this Court would let the people of DC have two senators. They may figure it’s worth a try, and that means convincing Joe Manchin of something, alas, of which he has no interest in being convinced.