Name: Abigail Roth
Occupation: Retired; Previously a lawyer and higher education administrator
Hometown: Washington, DC
Tell me a little bit about yourself. How long have you lived in DC?
I am originally from a small town in Western Massachusetts. I have lived in Washington, DC at two different stages of my life. First, from 1996-2007, before moving to New Haven, Connecticut for 19 years. I moved back to DC in May of this year (2026). I also spent one summer during college in DC, as well as two summers during law school.
Why did you decide to move to DC?
During my summers in DC, I fell in love with the city for many reasons — more on the reasons below! — and thought it would be a wonderful place to live and work after I finished school, in part because I was interested in being a lawyer for the Federal government and in the mid-1990s, DC was an ideal place for that career path.
I happily got a job as a Federal government lawyer, which I found very fulfilling. However, after 11 years, I moved to New Haven, CT. My dad was very sick at the time, and so I was eager to be closer to where I had grown up. I also had an exciting job opportunity.
For the past several years, my husband and I have been discussing that we’d love to move back to DC (where he also lived prior to being in New Haven) when we retired. We both had loved the city when we were younger, and for a variety of reasons thought it would be a wonderful place to live as older/retired people. It’s interesting to reflect on how I initially moved to DC for an exciting, fulfilling job opportunity, and now moved back for an exciting, fulfilling post-work phase of life!
What do you love most about living in DC?
There is a lot I love about DC! For one, it’s a beautiful city. There are so many trees and parks (spring is spectacular, when everything is in bloom!), and it is filled with gorgeous historic houses and buildings. The historic layout of wide diagonal streets, smaller curved roads, and circles makes it fun and interesting to walk around. Because there aren’t high-rise buildings, it has a very human scale. I also love that the history of the city feels very present throughout its many neighborhoods, and in its many museums.
I also love that so many people in DC share my interest in policy and public service, creating a strong civic fabric, and abundant meaningful post-retirement volunteer opportunities. Additionally, I love that DC is filled with people with all different backgrounds, which makes it a really interesting city — I love hearing a wide mix of languages on the street. I also love that there is a vibrant cultural scene, including lots of regional/small theaters. Moreover, I love that it has lots of bike trails and great public transit.
Finally, I love that people are so loyal to the city. When I lived in Connecticut, I never saw people display the state flag – in DC, you see the DC flag on many homes and people wearing t-shirts and the like displaying pride in DC!
Could you talk about your own experience being disenfranchised, or in other words, what it has been like to lose the rights you had when you were living in one of the 50 states?
The first time I lived in DC, I admittedly didn’t focus a lot on the fact that I paid federal taxes, but didn’t have voting representation in Congress and that Congress had final say on the city budget and city legislation. However, I do remember that I thought the “Taxation Without Representation” language that started getting added to license plates during that time was excellent.
Returning to DC after having been civically active in Connecticut, I find it maddening that residents of DC are disenfranchised. In Connecticut, I frequently wrote my US representative and senators with my views on issues, encouraging them to vote certain ways on bills or address certain issues. Now I, along with the approximately 700,000 other DC residents (more people than live in Vermont and Wyoming), have no one we can write or call on such issues. We pay more federal taxes per capita than any state, yet have no one with a vote representing us in Congress.
Equally disturbing, Congress, which has no expertise on local issues, can overturn both the budget and the laws that our local elected officials enact. I served on the Board of Alders (the equivalent of a city council) in New Haven. People in New Haven (or any other city/town in the US) would be livid if the US Congress, filled with people they did not elect, could overturn their local laws and budget. Frankly, it’s insane, and the fact that it happens in the nation’s capital, allegedly the heart of democracy, makes it even more insane.
What does achieving statehood mean for you?
Achieving statehood would mean that all residents of DC have a DC representative and DC senators, who they can reach out to to express their views AND who have the power to vote in Congress, so that they are meaningfully represented in Congress. It also would mean that on the local level, local elected officials who are knowledgeable about local issues and answerable to residents, have the final word on Washington, DC’s legislation and budget. Finally, it means we no longer will be taxed by the Federal government, without having meaningful representation in Congress. I look forward to the day when DC can redesign their license plates, with a new slogan!
What do you think needs to be done to get closer to achieving statehood?
Residents of DC need to educate people across the country about the unbelievably undemocratic situation in DC, since we need people with voting representatives in Congress to push to have DC become a state. Whenever I tell someone from outside of DC how I don’t have a voting representative/senators and how Congress controls the DC budget and legislation, they think it’s nonsensical and needs to be changed. Most people outside of DC understandably don’t spend much time thinking about this situation. We have to make changing DC residents’ disenfranchisement a priority for them.
Because DC is most likely to elect Democratic congresspeople, politics will play into getting any statehood bill passed. We’ll likely need a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress and the White House to get statehood legislation passed.
[this interview was conducted in July 2026]