House Dems pass D.C. statehood bill

Legislation faces long odds in Senate, with stiff GOP opposition

WASHINGTON — For the second time in history, the House passed legislation Thursday to make the District of Columbia the nation’s 51st state, bolstering momentum for a once-illusory goal that has become a pivotal tenet of the Democratic Party’s voting rights platform.

Democrats approved Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton’s Washington, D.C. Admission Act 216-208 in a partyline vote, describing it as a bid to restore equal citizenship to the residents of the nation’s capital and rectify a historic injustice.

The bill, symbolically titled H.R. 51, now heads to the Senate, where proponents hope to break new ground — including a first-ever hearing in that chamber.

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer pledged Tuesday that “we will try to work a path to get [statehood] done,” and the White House asked Congress in a policy statement to pass the legislation as swiftly as possible.

But the political odds remain formidable, with the Senate filibuster requiring the support of 60 senators to advance legislation. Republicans, who hold 50 seats, have branded the bill as a Democratic power grab because it would create two Senate seats for the deepblue city. Not even all Senate Democrats have backed the bill as the clock ticks toward the 2022 midterm election.

Still, the unprecedented support from Democrats nationwide, including in the White House, has energized supporters.

“We have a moment before us that has never existed for the statehood movement,” said Josh Burch, co-founder of Neighbors United for DC Statehood. “We can pat ourselves on the back and celebrate the House vote, and we should. But really that needs to be short-lived, because we have a lot of work to make this a reality in the next year and a half.”

The House passed the statehood bill for the first time last year, also without any Republican votes. Since then, sustained racial justice demonstrations and a broad Democratic focus on voting rights in the aftermath of the 2020 election have elevated the cause. Bringing their advocacy as far as Arizona and Alaska, groups such as 51 for 51 and Indivisible have described a city of second-class, plurality-Black citizens living in the nation’s capital without any say in the nation’s laws.

Norton said this year’s vote felt even more significant than last year’s, because awareness of the District’s plight seems to be growing.”It’s now begun to excite the country,” she said in an interview earlier this week.

H.R. 51 would shrink the federal district to a two-mile-square enclave. The rest of the residential and commercial areas would become the State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth.