Washington, D.C. Admission Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Georgia for yielding.

I appreciate the opportunity to address this important issue and the question the gentleman from Maryland just asked. I hear the question.

Yes, their District boundary lines have changed in the past, but what the majority wants to do today is fundamentally alter what Washington, D.C., is. That is what is at stake here.

I would love to hear the gentleman from Maryland expound on his support and belief in our electoral college since, suddenly, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have a newfound respect for the power of States and the importance of States. I would love to hear them expound on that.

I would love to hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle talk about what is critical about community and about respecting the ability of people to live differently in order for us to agree to disagree, to allow Texas to be Texas, California to be California. I would like love to hear my colleagues on the other side of the aisle expound on these principles.

This is about power. That is what this is about. Let's make no mistake about it. D.C., I do not believe, should become a State--and I use that word importantly, should not become a State.

We can talk about the constitutional infirmities with what the majority is trying to do. My colleagues are doing that, and they have laid that out.

The Constitution speaks to creating the Federal city in Washington, D.C. The Founders wanted to do that for a reason. We wanted this seat to be completely unintertwined and separated from other States. We wanted it to be special and unique and not subject to the powers and the struggles that go on about the people in a certain State. That is what is at stake here.

I would note that my friends, Mr. Raskin, Mr. Connolly, Mr. Hoyer, and Mr. Beyer, are the first to rattle--the very first to rattle--if we dare go down the road of potential shutdown, if we dare go down the road of limiting the size and scope of the Federal Government. Why? Because the jurisdictions they represent are wholly and heavily dependent on this Federal Government.

I am a proud Texan dating back to the 1850s, but I grew up in Loudoun County, Virginia, and went to the University of Virginia. When I grew up in Loudoun County, it was 80 percent dirt roads. There was one stoplight in my entire school district. It was a rural county fully separated from Washington, D.C., and now it is the richest per capita county in the United States of America because leviathan grows.

It is because leviathan continues to separate from the real Americans out there--the people throughout the entire country who are not being represented by this body.

If we want to talk about representation, then let's talk about this body doing its job to represent the people, the forgotten man. The American people are tired of watching their country burning to the ground, statutes being toppled, people getting killed in the streets. And we are spending time here today on an unconstitutional effort to create a State out of a Federal city that the Constitution contemplated being separated so that it could be unique and be the power seat of this great country.

Mr. Speaker, that is what this is about.

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