After failing to secure support for statehood in New Hampshire, one D.C. Council member is calling the trip a mistake and others say they need to be better prepared to address the myths many outsiders still believe about the District.
Ward 3 Councilwoman Mary Cheh said the city's first trip -- a highly publicized one -- to lobby for statehood support should have been in friendlier territory than a New Hampshire legislative committee dominated by critics of the District.
"It felt like an ambush," Cheh said of the slew of questions council members took, which ranged from how D.C. would separate its land from federal land to the city's homicide rate.
"The adage that it's better to have love and lost [then never to have loved at all] doesn't apply here," she said. "We shouldn't have gone."
Others who made the trip to Concord last month to testify before a House committee on a resolution supporting D.C.'s quest to become a state said they realized they had a lot more schooling to do about the District and who lives here.
"One person ... their question was if the Washington Monument fell or had to relocate, where would they put it? In D.C. or the federal part of D.C.?," said at-large Councilman Michael Brown. "I mean, how do you respond to that?"
At-large Councilman David Catania, whose office had worked with the New Hampshire legislator who sponsored the statehood resolution, said the trip was successful in at least "confronting some of the misunderstandings" some people still have about the District.
Brown, who is working with legislators in five other states to introduce pro-statehood resolutions there, said he plans to focus on educating people about the District in his testimony on future trips.
"Because people think this is where you go on class trips, this is where the seat of government is, they don't realize that there are neighborhoods ... and schools and hospitals and diverse people," he said.
Still, he acknowledged that venturing into territory dominated by conservatives could be a fruitless venture.
"There's a political reason people will never support statehood and that being there's a perception that ... the two new senators would be Democratic or at least left-leaning," said Brown, an independent. "And if you're a Republican, that's a concern and I understand that."
Cheh said she'd go on a trip again but thought officials should avoid up-and-down votes for now and conduct roundtables or other informal discussions.
"Before we go to any state to [lobby for them to] adopt a resolution, we really ought to have a fair shot of it being adopted," she said.
