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Speaker 1: On this episode of Newtsworld. The discussion about whether the

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Speaker 1: District of Columbia, or Washington d C. As its better known,

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Speaker 1: should become the fifty first state in Nited States has

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Speaker 1: been ongoing for years. Congresland Eleanor Holmes Norton, who has

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Speaker 1: been representing the District of Columbia for thirty years in Congress,

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Speaker 1: has been the leading champion of the bill HR fifty one,

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Speaker 1: known as the Washington d C. Admission Act. It was

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Speaker 1: passed by the United States House Representative yesterday in a

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Speaker 1: vote straight down party lines, with no Democrats voting no

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Speaker 1: and no Republicans voting yes. The bill now moves to

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Speaker 1: the Senate. However, the way our founders wrote the Constitution,

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Speaker 1: they had the express intent to never allow Washington d C.

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Speaker 1: To become a state. On April thirteenth, Attorney General Wilson

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Speaker 1: and twenty one Attorneys General sent a letter to President

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Speaker 1: Biden and the leaders of Congress opposing the bill to

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Speaker 1: make the District of Columbia state. The letter from the

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Speaker 1: Attorney's General first and foremost is an effort to uphold

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Speaker 1: the US Constitution. I'm pleased to welcome my good friend

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Speaker 1: and our guest Alan Wilson, South Carolina's Attorney General. First,

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Speaker 1: I thought I would tell our listeners I do not

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Speaker 1: agree with the dish of Columbia becoming a state, and

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Speaker 1: my reasons are grounded in the way our founders wrote

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Speaker 1: the Constitution. But I'm a historian, not a lawyer, So

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Speaker 1: I wanted to have Attorney General Allen Wilson on to

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Speaker 1: really explain the issue and why HR fifty one should

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Speaker 1: be defeated. He's done a tremendous amount of research looking

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Speaker 1: at the issue from both a legal and political perspective. Alan, welcome.

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Speaker 1: I'm curious just to start, how did you bring the

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Speaker 1: other twenty one attorney generals together around this issue of

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Speaker 1: opposing d statehood. Well, mister speaker, first, thank you for

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Speaker 1: having me on the pod cast today as honor to

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Speaker 1: always be with you and to discuss important issues like this. First,

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Speaker 1: I was watching the news one night about some of

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Speaker 1: the bills coming down the pipeline that a lot of

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Speaker 1: vags were engaged in. One of the bills that came

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Speaker 1: up was a bill called the Washington DC Statehood Bill,

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Speaker 1: and so I found it interesting. I went and pulled

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Speaker 1: up the bill and I read it. I did one

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Speaker 1: thing that a lot of members of Congress probably don't

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Speaker 1: do that with a vote on bills. But I read

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Speaker 1: the thing and it was clear to me it was

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Speaker 1: evident on the face of the bill that this is

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Speaker 1: an unconstitutional act by Congress. And I always want to say,

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Speaker 1: first and foremost, I disagree fundamentally with this bill to

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Speaker 1: make Washington, DC at the fifty first state on constitutional grounds,

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Speaker 1: long before you get the policy or political grounds. We

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Speaker 1: know this is a neckd ambitious grab of power by

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Speaker 1: the left to pack the Senate like they're trying to

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Speaker 1: do with the Court. But I don't even have to

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Speaker 1: get to that. My concern is that this is unconstitutional

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Speaker 1: first and foremost, before it's even get to the bad

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Speaker 1: policy question. And so I felt like the states needed

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Speaker 1: to speak up on this because of the unconstitutionality of

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Speaker 1: the act, and that we needed to let Congress know

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Speaker 1: that if they blow up the filibuster and ran this through,

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Speaker 1: that we're going to be there to sue. I sent

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Speaker 1: the letter to President Biden and leaders of Congress had

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Speaker 1: twenty one colleagues signed the letter to let them know

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Speaker 1: that if you pass this, we will see you in

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court and here's why we will be successful. I

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Speaker 1: think that the whole concept of this letter was really

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Speaker 1: very important because at the time, I think the left

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Speaker 1: just felt they were on a roll. They'd won the

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Speaker 1: presidential election, and their activist wing was really pushing this.

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Speaker 1: But one of the things I'm fascinated by here you

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Speaker 1: really go to the heart of the whole issue and

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Speaker 1: the nature of why the Founding fathers felt the way

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Speaker 1: they did. Can you sort of walk us through why

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Speaker 1: the founding fathers were so determined and what they had

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Speaker 1: experienced that led them to want to have the udition

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Speaker 1: of Columbia remained independent from any state. Well, absolutely, And

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Speaker 1: you're a student of history, and you know firsthand, and

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Speaker 1: anyone that's ever read about the founding of our nation

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Speaker 1: knows that the founders were deeply affected by the events

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Speaker 1: of their day and it directed their views on how

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Speaker 1: our republic should be set up. And you know, there

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Speaker 1: were a number of things that occurred early on in

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Speaker 1: the revolution and towards the end of the Revolution that

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Speaker 1: affected their decision to create an independent district as the

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Speaker 1: seat of government for our nation. They wanted a republic

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Speaker 1: built on the foundation of federalism that they wanted the

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Speaker 1: states to be independent from the federal government, and they

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Speaker 1: wanted the federal government to be independent from the states,

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Speaker 1: and they needed a federal district to be the bridge

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Speaker 1: between the two. And they didn't want to create a superstate,

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Speaker 1: and they didn't want to create a territory. They didn't

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Speaker 1: want to occupy it already established city. They wanted to

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Speaker 1: create a new and independent seat of government. One of

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Speaker 1: the main reasons is if you go back and you

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Speaker 1: study the end of the Revolutionary War, there were a

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Speaker 1: lot of disgruntled, disaffected members of the militia who were

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Speaker 1: upset that they weren't getting paid, and so they marched

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Speaker 1: on Philadelphia to demand that the Continental Congress pay them.

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Speaker 1: The Continental Congress called on the State of Pennsylvania to

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Speaker 1: protect them, and the State of Pennsylvania refused to protect them,

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Speaker 1: and therefore they had to flee the building before that

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Speaker 1: little uprising could be quelled. So that was an example

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Speaker 1: of something James Madison referred to when he was writing

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Speaker 1: in The Federalist forty three and then other found the

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Speaker 1: Forefathers talked about. They wanted a federal seat of power

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Speaker 1: that could not be under the control of the General Assembly.

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Speaker 1: From one of the states. They wanted something that they

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Speaker 1: could completely control when they met. One of the first

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Speaker 1: things they did was they set up a federal seat

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Speaker 1: of power, and it was basically most people talk about

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Speaker 1: Article four, section three when it comes to the creation

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Speaker 1: of new states. The authority for the creation of the

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Speaker 1: District of Columbia. The Federal seat of Power is an

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Speaker 1: actually Article one section in a Claw seventeen, and it

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Speaker 1: basically gave Congress to create a seat of government which

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Speaker 1: shall become the Federal District, and that Congress shall have

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Speaker 1: the authority to have exclusive legislation over whatever district shall become.

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Speaker 1: Congress can no more abdicate its authority to give up

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Speaker 1: its power to tax, and they can give up its

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Speaker 1: authority to legislator over the district. If they want to

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Speaker 1: do that, they will have to do so through a

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Speaker 1: constitutional amendment. They can't do it through statutory effect. They

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Speaker 1: have to pass a constitutional amendment. And so the founders

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Speaker 1: wanted it that way because they didn't want Congress to

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Speaker 1: scrowl around with the operation of the District of Columbia

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Speaker 1: once it was created. They wanted to remain the federal

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Speaker 1: district and that Congress could be able to legislate over it.

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Speaker 1: The Congress could not change the makeup of the district

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Speaker 1: once it was created. So the whole system that was

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Speaker 1: being involved was a deliberate effort to block any single

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Speaker 1: state from having dominance over the federal government absolute. They

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Speaker 1: did not want to have a super state. They debated this,

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Speaker 1: and obviously in New York, Philadelphia, there were other cities

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Speaker 1: that were basically powerhouse cities back in that day. They

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Speaker 1: didn't want to put the federal district on top of

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Speaker 1: one of those that would be the capital city of

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Speaker 1: another state. They wanted to have an independent seat of

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Speaker 1: power for the United States. I'm sure you're familiar with

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Speaker 1: this alleged to dinner that Thomas Jefferson had between Alexander

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Speaker 1: Hamilton and James Madison. Obviously, Jefferson and Madison were from Virginia.

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Speaker 1: Hamilton came from the North, and there was a concern

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Speaker 1: about the North had a lot of debt and the

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Speaker 1: Southern states from the Revolution did not have a lot

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Speaker 1: of debt, and the South did not want the federal

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Speaker 1: government assuming the debt. James for assumption of the debt.

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Speaker 1: The South cut a deal with Alexander Hamilton, Will assume

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Speaker 1: the debt, but you have to move the capital city

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Speaker 1: to the shores of the Potomac between Maryland and then Virginia.

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Speaker 1: And that was the deal that they cut in exchange

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Speaker 1: for assuming the debt of the North. So that deal

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Speaker 1: was struck, and the founders gave some parameters. If you

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Speaker 1: read the constitution, they said the only restriction was that

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Speaker 1: it shall not exceed ten miles square. At that time,

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Speaker 1: they said the states of Virginia and Maryland have to

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Speaker 1: basically agree to it, which they did, and that's how

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Speaker 1: the Federal District was created. And of course we can

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Speaker 1: talk about the full history of the district, but the

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Speaker 1: bottom line is Congress cannot advocate its authority to give

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Speaker 1: away the district and can make it a state because

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Speaker 1: that is not allowed in the Constitution. They would have

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Speaker 1: to do it through a constitutional amendment. And mister speaker,

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Speaker 1: you already know this. But the twenty third Amendment, which

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Speaker 1: was past in nineteen sixty one, it basically gives the

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Speaker 1: residence of the District of Columbia the ability to vote

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Speaker 1: for electors to the Electoral College. The Congress at the

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Speaker 1: time knew that they could not pass a federal law

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Speaker 1: giving Washington DC electors the Electoral College because Washington DC

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Speaker 1: is distinct from a state or a territory. It is

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Speaker 1: very different, and so they knew that they had to

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Speaker 1: do this through astitutional amendment. They had to give the

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Speaker 1: electors to Washington DC through an amendment to the Constitution.

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Speaker 1: That underscores the point I'm making that they can't create

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Speaker 1: a fifty first state. They can't truncate the district down

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Speaker 1: to the National Mall without a constitutional amendment. If they could,

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Speaker 1: then why do they need the twenty third Amendment to

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Speaker 1: give them electors to electoral college? I noticed so when

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Speaker 1: they tried in nineteen ninety three, the New columbiad mission

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Speaker 1: would be pretty badly in the House one fifty three

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Speaker 1: to two seventy seven. I'm not sure that that majority

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Speaker 1: is still there in your judgment. Why did it failed

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Speaker 1: so badly at ninety three and what do you suspect

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Speaker 1: the vote is now? Well, if you love history, there

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Speaker 1: was a report that was given by the Attorney generals

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Speaker 1: when Edwin Meese was then Attorney General under the Reagan administration.

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Speaker 1: I think it was nineteen eighty six, and there was

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Speaker 1: a sixty seventy page report given and I've read this report.

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Speaker 1: I read a number of other reports, but if you

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Speaker 1: go back, but the report under the Mease administration in

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Speaker 1: the Justice Department goes into great detail the history of DC.

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Speaker 1: And what's interesting is back in the day the Carter

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Speaker 1: administration and going back to the Kennedy administration, even Robert

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Speaker 1: Kennedy when he was Attorney General, all agreed. It was

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Speaker 1: a bipartisan belief. Outside of the partisans in the District

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Speaker 1: of Columbia, they all believe it would basically for the

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Speaker 1: intent of the founders to create a fifty first state,

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Speaker 1: or to do anything that would create or make Washington,

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Speaker 1: DC anything other than the federal sea to power. They

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Speaker 1: were against this. So there was a lot of bipartisan

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Speaker 1: unanimity in that belief system. But in the last couple

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Speaker 1: of years, when the amendment to the Constitution to give

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Speaker 1: residents of DC a right to vote in federal elections,

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Speaker 1: like say in Maryland, there was this push to go

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Speaker 1: the DC direction. One thing that I've noticed is that

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Speaker 1: in the last five to ten years there's been a

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Speaker 1: hard push to go to the left by the Democratic Party,

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Speaker 1: by the leaders. Not all Democrats are like this, but

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Speaker 1: at the national level. You know, when you look at

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Speaker 1: the defund the police and the amnesty for all illegals

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Speaker 1: and the funding of illegals through healthcare and welfare and

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Speaker 1: all the other programs. They're going so hard to the left.

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Speaker 1: The idea that they're talking about packing for members to

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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, which they refer to as unpacking the Court.

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Speaker 1: This radical jerk to the left has caused them to

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Speaker 1: lose sight of their senses, and now they are making

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Speaker 1: an argument that even Edward Kennedy once thought was foolish,

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Speaker 1: that creating a fifty first state out of Washington, DC

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Speaker 1: was wrong. And so that is something that up until

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Speaker 1: a decade ago, was pretty universal. Now as to where

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Speaker 1: it Congress is, I imagine that as long as the

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Speaker 1: filibuster remains in place in the Senate, I think this

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Speaker 1: bill will fail. But if they blow the filibuster up,

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Speaker 1: you're going to possibly see HR one, which federal lies

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Speaker 1: as all state elections. You're going to see the packing

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Speaker 1: of the Supreme Court. You're going to see the packing

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Speaker 1: of the US Senate and the Congress. By the creation

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Speaker 1: of the fifty first state, You're going to see a

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Speaker 1: lot of radical ideas come. But as long as I

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Speaker 1: filibusters in place, I feel confident that this won't pass.

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Speaker 1: But the reason I sent the letter with twenty two

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Speaker 1: states on it was that I wanted to signal to

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Speaker 1: certain senators in the US Senate and members of Congress

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Speaker 1: that if you pass this, you will be on the

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Speaker 1: losing side of history, because we will sue in the

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Speaker 1: Supreme Court, and I truly believe the court will side

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Speaker 1: with us. Well, that's where I thought the letter that

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Speaker 1: you sent on April thirteenth, having that many signatures from

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Speaker 1: eminent lawyers in the states who are attorneys general, you

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Speaker 1: really had laid down here a very high hurdle for

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Speaker 1: them to imagine that they can get over it. And

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Speaker 1: I thought it was a very well done letter. What

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Speaker 1: sort of reaction, if any, have you gotten so far? Well,

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Speaker 1: Homestate of South Carolina. I mean, I've received nothing but

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Speaker 1: positive feedback from everyone that I've spoken to, and I

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Speaker 1: mean most of my friends who are on the left

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Speaker 1: side of the aisle are and the Democratic Party really

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Speaker 1: aren't focused on this at the state level. I did

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Speaker 1: have a brief conversation with the DC Attorney General the

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Speaker 1: other day, and he obviously disagreed with my position. And

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Speaker 1: told me so, which he has a right to do.

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Speaker 1: Very polite in his disagreement, but everywhere I go, people

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Speaker 1: are one hundred percent agreement about our position. I do

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Speaker 1: want to point out one thing that I think will

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Speaker 1: be thrown in our faces, but I think it's easy

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Speaker 1: to basically dispel. And that is if you recall when

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Speaker 1: Washington DC was created on the shores of the Potomac,

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Speaker 1: about seventy percent of thet fell into Maryland and the

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Speaker 1: remaining thirty percent fell into Virginia. In eighteen forty six,

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Speaker 1: that portion of the District of Columbia that was in

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Speaker 1: Virginia was retroceeded back to the Commonwealth of Virginia. And

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Speaker 1: we even put a footnote in our letter for those

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Speaker 1: who've read the letter that acknowledges that that occurred. But

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Speaker 1: that was never challenge. That constitutional issue was never raised.

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Speaker 1: The court never weighed in on it, and we don't

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Speaker 1: think that's a legal precedent. They'll claim it is, but

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Speaker 1: it is not a legal president because it was never

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Speaker 1: challenged at that time. And that is why Washington DC

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Speaker 1: looks the way it does today. And here's another thing,

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Speaker 1: mister Speaker, I would say, I would still disagree with

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Speaker 1: Washington DC being converted into a fifty first state. But

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Speaker 1: let's say the Democrats in the House and Senate and said, hey, listen,

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Speaker 1: why don't we pass a constitutional amendment that retrocedes Maryland's

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Speaker 1: portion of the District of Columbia back to Maryland and

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Speaker 1: then allow everyone that is currently a resident of Washington,

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Speaker 1: d C. Now to be a voter in the state

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Speaker 1: of Maryland, and then just have the congressional representation that

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Speaker 1: they currently have in Maryland. I said, why aren't they

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Speaker 1: doing that, because that doesn't give them two extra seats

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Speaker 1: in the US Senate an extra seat in the House.

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Speaker 1: They could do that through constitutional amendment. I would have

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Speaker 1: no legal argument against them doing it that way. I

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Speaker 1: would have an apolo the argument because I think it's wrong.

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Speaker 1: But they don't want to do that because they are

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Speaker 1: motivated purely out of a sense of packing Congress with

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Speaker 1: permanent members of their party. So that is the reason

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Speaker 1: they're doing this. People can claim I'm doing it for

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Speaker 1: political reasons, but I can at least point to the

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Speaker 1: Constitution and the intent of the founders on my argument.

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Speaker 1: They can't point to that, and so I like to

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Speaker 1: always underscore that point. So the challenge they've got, it

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Speaker 1: seems to me, is that there's nothing in the historic

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Speaker 1: record going all the way back to seventeen eighty seven

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Speaker 1: seventeen eighty eight that would suggest that creating a state

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Speaker 1: out of the national capital was in any way seen

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Speaker 1: positively by any of the founding fathers or by any

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Speaker 1: of the generations since them. There were discussions, I mean,

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Speaker 1: people talked about the residents of the District of Columbia

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Speaker 1: having a right to vote representation in Congress. There were

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Speaker 1: discussions and there was a debate at that time. There

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Speaker 1: was an internal debate about how Washington, d C. Should

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Speaker 1: govern itself as a territory, or should the president select

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Speaker 1: the mayor. I think it was in nineteen seventy three

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Speaker 1: that they implemented home rule and gave its own home

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Speaker 1: governance with the mayor and a city council, etc. But

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Speaker 1: from the eighteen seventies to the nineteen seventies there was

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Speaker 1: really no major push to change how Washington DC was run,

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Speaker 1: with the exception of the twenty third Amendment that gave

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Speaker 1: it three electoral votes in the electoral College, which was

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Speaker 1: past in nineteen sixty one. By the way, if I

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Speaker 1: may this is a somewhat of an absurdity. They do

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Speaker 1: want to eliminate the twenty third Amendment if they're given

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Speaker 1: statehood status. But I do want to say something I

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Speaker 1: thought was kind of clever in the bill. It doesn't

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Speaker 1: seek to convert all of Washington DC into a state.

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Speaker 1: What they want to do is they want to truncate

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Speaker 1: all of the parts of Washington, DC, all the way

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Speaker 1: down to the National Mall, the gardens, the National museums,

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Speaker 1: the Capital Complex with those federal buildings, the Supreme Court,

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Speaker 1: and then the White House complex and the old Executive

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Speaker 1: Office building. They just want that the gardens and museums

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Speaker 1: and the federal buildings to be the US Capital and

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Speaker 1: everything around it being the Washington Douglas Commonwealth, which would

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Speaker 1: be the new state. If you look at the map

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Speaker 1: what that would look like, it basically creates a donut

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Speaker 1: hole where the US Capital would be a complete enclave

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Speaker 1: within the new Washington Douglas Commonwealth state, and so it

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Speaker 1: would be completely encircled. But what's interesting about that, mister Speaker,

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Speaker 1: is I can't imagine any other residents living in that

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Speaker 1: enclave other than the first family. You might have another

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Speaker 1: family or two or three somehow that live within that enclave.

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Speaker 1: I can't imagine there'd be residence on the National Mall,

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Speaker 1: but there's certainly residents at sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I'm not saying it would happen, but theoretically speaking, the

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Speaker 1: first family could register to vote at sixteen hundred Pennsylvania

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Speaker 1: Avenue and under the twenty third Amendment, be able to

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Speaker 1: vote for their own three electors to the Electoral College.

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Speaker 1: Over the years, I've always said that I would have

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Speaker 1: been happy to have returned for voting purposes the residents

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Speaker 1: of Washington to Maryland. It would just mean the two

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Speaker 1: liberal Democrats from the Maryland Senate would have more votes.

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Speaker 1: I've never had anybody in Maryland who was excited by

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Speaker 1: the opportunity to have all of the residents of DC

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Speaker 1: vote in Maryland. The Democrats from Maryland will tell you

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Speaker 1: how much they're for DC statehood, but they don't particularly

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Speaker 1: want to have DC brotherhood in terms of allowing them

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Speaker 1: to vote in Maryland. And I think it's just the

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Speaker 1: nature of the business. Well, listen, I gather that if

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Speaker 1: it did for some reason past the House and Senate,

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Speaker 1: the U all would be prepared to file suit almost immediately. Absolutely,

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Speaker 1: we are prepared to file suit. And I suspect that

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Speaker 1: more than the twenty two signatures or not letter would

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Speaker 1: join US. I think other states have actually joined an

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Speaker 1: actual suit. I've taught to other officials and other states,

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Speaker 1: and I think you would see possibly a majority of

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Speaker 1: the states somehow in some form representative through governors are

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Speaker 1: at appointed ags who couldn't assign the letter because of

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Speaker 1: the internal processes of their respective states. But I do

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Speaker 1: want to address one other argument. There's this view that

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Speaker 1: there are people in Washington, DC who have taxation without representation.

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Speaker 1: In other words, they are taxed by Congress, but they

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Speaker 1: don't have representatives in Congress. They have Miss Holmes, who

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Speaker 1: is their delegate, that doesn't have voting privileges. First off,

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Speaker 1: it is a privilege to live in the US capital,

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Speaker 1: but you don't have the right to have voting representation

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Speaker 1: in Congress because you're a US citizen. You have a

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Speaker 1: right to have a voting member of Congress because you're

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Speaker 1: a citizen of a state. Okay, that is very clear

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Speaker 1: in the US Constitution. There are people going back one

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Speaker 1: hundred years, one hundred and fifty years one hundred and

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Speaker 1: eighty year who left states and migrated to territories to

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Speaker 1: carve out a new existence, and they gave up the

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Speaker 1: right to have voting representation in Congress. There are people

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Speaker 1: sitting in prison who don't get to vote any elections.

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Speaker 1: They get those rights from maybe reinstated, just like the

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Speaker 1: people who leave a state to go to a territory

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Speaker 1: might get that right reinstated once that territory became a state.

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Speaker 1: But having a voting member in Congress is not a

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Speaker 1: universal right. You have all the rights in the Constitution,

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Speaker 1: the civil liberties, the freedoms and protections we have, and

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Speaker 1: the Bill of Rights are all there for all of us,

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Speaker 1: but it's only those people who are members of states

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Speaker 1: and to those residents of DC. You can move to

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Speaker 1: a state. You don't have to be there. Your ancestors

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Speaker 1: may have chosen to raise you there and bring you

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Speaker 1: up there. But again, you also have the privilege of

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Speaker 1: living in the US capital with all of the things

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Speaker 1: that go with that and all of the support the

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Speaker 1: Congress has to provide. So I don't feel like people

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Speaker 1: are not represented in Congress, and also feel like they're

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Speaker 1: not trapped there. They can vote with their feet and

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Speaker 1: go to another state where they will have voting privileges

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Speaker 1: in Congress. So you're offering a sense genuinely federalist view

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Speaker 1: of how the system works, as opposed to a centralized

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Speaker 1: nationalist view. Absolutely, federalism requires that you have fifty independent states. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: you have territories, and then you have the federal government,

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Speaker 1: which succeeded in Washington, d C. But there has to

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Speaker 1: be something distinct and unique from a state in the

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Speaker 1: territory and the federal government. You have to have a

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Speaker 1: federal district. The founders did not want the capital to

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Speaker 1: be nothing but a bunch of gardens and museums and

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Speaker 1: a couple of beautifully ornate federal buildings. They wanted a district.

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Speaker 1: When the leaders of other nations came and when people

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Speaker 1: would come to the United States Capital, they weren't coming

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Speaker 1: to a couple of museums and a couple of buildings.

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Speaker 1: They were coming to a federal district, a capital city.

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Speaker 1: And what this bill seeks to do is to wipe

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Speaker 1: that away. Relegate Washington DC nothing more than basically like

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Speaker 1: a Vatican city, kind of like this capital on a

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Speaker 1: grassy knoll with a couple of federal buildings and gardens

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Speaker 1: and thoughts, what the founders created and for what they

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Speaker 1: intended for it to be. Washington, DC needs to remain

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Speaker 1: the federal seat of power and needs to remain a district,

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Speaker 1: and we believe that's what the Constitution called for. Congress

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Speaker 1: cannot simply wipe that away through legislative FIAT. They have

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Speaker 1: to do it through a constitutional amendment. If they want

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Speaker 1: to attempt to do that, I'll switch to my argument

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Speaker 1: from a legal win to a policy win, and we'll

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Speaker 1: argue against it on policy grounds. But right now they

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Speaker 1: don't have the authority to do that under our constitution.

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Speaker 1: That's great. Well, listen, we are going to for our

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Speaker 1: listeners because this is a very impressive letter. We are

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Speaker 1: going to post it on our show page so that

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Speaker 1: people can see it. We also want to remind all

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Speaker 1: of our listeners that they can call their representatives in

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Speaker 1: Congress and let them know that they oppose DC. State

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Speaker 1: could HR fifty one, and they can call the US

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Speaker 1: Capital Switchboard two two two two four three one two one.

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Speaker 1: Let me just repeat that two O two two two

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Speaker 1: four three one two one, and the switchboard operator will

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Speaker 1: connect you directly to the House or Senate office you request.

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Speaker 1: So I think that what you've done, Alan has created

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Speaker 1: a great template for people to study the letter, get

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Speaker 1: on the phone and communicate directly with their members of

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Speaker 1: the House and Senate. And I really really appreciate you

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Speaker 1: joining me today. Thank you, mister Speaker. It's always a

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Speaker 1: privilege to talk with you, and I hope I get

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Speaker 1: to see you again soon. Thank you to my guest,

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Speaker 1: Alan Wilson, the Attorney General for South Carolina. You can

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Speaker 1: read more about why Washington, d c. Should not become

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Speaker 1: a state on our show page at newtsworld dot com.

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Speaker 1: News World is produced by Gingwich p sixty and iHeartMedia.

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Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Debbie Myers, our producer is Garnsey Sloan,

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Speaker 1: and our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the

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Speaker 1: show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to the

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Speaker 1: I'm newt Gingwish. This is news world,