Neither John Oliver nor the Dalai Lama are sure why Washington, D.C. still doesn’t have statehood, but on Sunday’s “Last Week Tonight,” the comedian made the case for a constitutional amendment to change that.
Washington, D.C., while housing the federal government, provides only nominal congressional representation to its residents. Congress even has to approve its budget.
“We’re the only democracy in the world that does this,” Oliver said. “In fact, when the Dalai Lama came to visit, he wondered why a small pocket of people living in the world’s champion of democracy lacked full voting rights, calling it, ‘Quite strange, quite strange.'”
And the Dalai Lama has some knowledge of governments encroaching on democratic autonomy.
“It’s not good when a guy from Tibet says, ‘Wow, this situation is really undemocratic. Someone should do something about it,'” Oliver said.
Watch the segment below: