House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) greets Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser during a joint press conference ahead of Friday’s historic House vote on the District of Columbia bill at Capitol Hill in Washington, USA, June 25, 2020.
Yuri Gripas | Reuters
House Democrats passed a bill on Friday to make Washington, DC, the 51st state in the US, a landmark move that is unlikely to gain traction in the Republican Senate.
The chamber approved it by a vote of 232-180.
The legislation would grant Washington residents, who have long denounced the fact that they pay federal taxes but have no voting representation in Congress, a member of the House and two senators. A smaller area encompassing the White House, the United States Capitol, and other federal buildings and monuments would remain under the supervision of the United States.
Washington House of Representatives delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton introduced the bill, which would change the name of the district to Washington state, Douglass Commonwealth. Advocating for the legislation on Friday, she noted that the population of approximately 700,000 DC residents is larger than that of Wyoming or Vermont, and that the district pays more federal taxes than 22 states.
“As we get closer to July 4, it is time to apply the oldest slogan in the country, ‘there are no taxes without representation’ and the principle of consent of the governed to residents of the District of Columbia,” Norton said.
Republican senators have opposed DC status and it seems unlikely they will adopt the legislation. President Donald Trump has also criticized the legislation.
But if Democrats can win control of the White House and Senate in November, DC may have another chance to become a state next year.
Republicans, who aim to maintain control of the Senate this year as Democrats compete for a handful of seats, have often cited a desire not to see a heavily Democratic city win two seats in the chamber.
“DC will never be a state,” the president told the New York Post in May. “You mean the District of Columbia, one state? Why? So can we have two more Democratic senators and five more congressmen? No thanks. That will never happen.” (Washington would only have one member of the House, not five, as Trump said.)
Some Democratic lawmakers saw Republican arguments against admitting DC as veiled efforts to deny representation in an area where nearly half of residents are black.
In the House of Representatives on Friday, Representative Maxine Waters, a Democrat from California, said “race underlies every argument against the state of DC” and called the lack of representation “injustice.”
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