Endgame: I’m not for D.C. statehood, says Manchin

There was no real suspense over whether this proposal would die an ugly death in the Senate despite having recently passed the House. D.C. statehood is a non-budgetary matter and thus subject to the filibuster in the Senate, and no Republicans were about to chip in on the push for 60 votes. But for lefties, a faint hope springs eternal that Joe Manchin will see the error of his ways belatedly, decide that it’s time to nuke the filibuster after all, and then join with his party to ram through statehood for Washington, delivering two new Senate votes for his party.

That hope died earlier today when Manchin made clear that he won’t support the House bill.

Although, really, it should have died last fall when Dems realized that their best-case scenario for this year was a 50/50 Senate. Why the hell would Joe Manchin (or Kyrsten Sinema) agree to admit two more Democratic Senate votes knowing that that would dilute their own power over the chamber’s agenda? Right now Manchin is the deciding vote. Biden and Schumer have to take dictation from him in order to get anything passed. Add two lockstep liberal senators from D.C. and suddenly no one will have a reason to take Manchin’s calls.

Go figure that he’s a no:

Manchin cited findings from the Justice Department under Presidents Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter and comments from then-Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in reaching his decision.

“They all came to the same conclusion: If Congress wants to make D.C. a state, it should propose a constitutional amendment. It should propose a constitutional amendment and let the people of America vote,” Manchin said in a radio interview with Hoppy Kercheval of West Virginia’s MetroNews, the full audio of which was provided to The Washington Post by Manchin’s staff…

He said in the radio interview that he viewed the 23rd Amendment as a chief obstacle for D.C. statehood, echoing arguments from congressional Republicans who have called D.C. statehood unconstitutional. The 23rd Amendment, ratified in 1961, gave D.C. three electoral votes in presidential elections.

“It complicates D.C.’s path to statehood because Congress had three options to choose from,” Manchin said. “They could have chose statehood back then, retrocession to Maryland . . . or we can grant electoral votes.

“They chose to grant three electoral votes, which is the same as any small state. That’s where it should be,” he continued. To those who want to change the District’s status, he said, “Let the people of America vote.”