This may be news to you but the people of Washington D.C. aren’t happy with the current state of the union.
Despite its many statues, monuments and the fact that it houses all three major branches of government, our nation’s capital is still considered a district, not an actual state. Well, a new commission is hoping to change that by campaigning for a bid for statehood which will likely be voted on by Congress later this month.
Why is this such a big deal? Not only does D.C. gain a vote in the House and the Senate if our nation’s government recognizes it as a state, it also gets a fancy new name. America, say hello to New Columbia. (No really, that’s probably what the guys running this are going with.)
According to WAMU, American University radio in Washington, New Columbia beat out monikers like “the State of Washington, D.C.,” “Anacostia,” “Douglass Commonwealth” and “Potomac,” to be the official name of our 51st state. That may be due to the fact that politician’s are incredibly dull and absolutely zero imagination but it also might be because this “new” bid for statehood isn’t really new at all. Washington first pushed to become a state way back in 1982 and it’s from that original bid that the idea of New Columbia was born.
“It’s the only name that’s even been voted on by the people of the District of Columbia,” shadow Sen. Michael Brown, who’s part of the commission, told WAMU. “For 34 years, people have used this name to push this movement forward.”
Of course the new bid has yet to be voted on and though noted politicians like Senator Bernie Sanders, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and President Obama support the movement, it’s likely Republicans will vote to reject D.C.’s statehood motion since most of the district’s residents are liberals.
If Congress actually votes on an issue, and that vote is in favor of the bid, here’s hoping residents pick a much better name than New Columbia. Besides conjuring images of Christopher Columbus — who gets way too much credit for “discovering the new world” when all he really did was enslave, torture and kill an entire group of people — the name may also be confusing. The Washingtonian wrote:
If D.C. is going to convince members of Congress from the rest of the country that it should be a state, it needs to offer a much better name, and not just because New Columbia would create some ugly postal-code confusion with North Carolina. It needs a name that calls back to its geography, history or culture.
Luckily, some concerned citizens have already offered a few worthy suggestions. We’re thinking Durantland or New Brunchington might work better.