D.C. flies flag with 51 stars ahead of hearing
WASHINGTON — About 140 U.S. flags bearing an extra star are flying along Pennsylvania Avenue as Washington, D.C., prepares for its first House hearing on U.S. statehood in a quarter century.
Mayor Muriel Bowser led a caravan to the U.S. Capitol on Monday to symbolize the city’s fight for congressional voting rights.
The Washington Post reported that mayoral spokeswoman LaToya Foster said the event and flags cost about $31,200, which came out of the $1 million that city lawmakers set aside to fight for statehood.
The bill set to be discussed Thursday by the Oversight Committee has more than 200 cosponsors and the support of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, both Democrats. Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has vowed to block a companion bill that has more than 30 sponsors.
Also up for discussion at the hearing may be an ongoing scandal involving D.C. Councilman Jack Evans. Evans resigned from his role as the chairman of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority board this summer after an internal investigation determined that he failed to disclose a profitable conflict of interest.
The findings by the Metro ethics committee were initially kept confidential, enabling Evans, his lawyer and former board member Corbett Price to lie about the findings and claim Evans had been cleared of wrongdoing. Authorities in Maryland and Virginia, along with local leaders, called for the committee to release its findings, and the committee soon yielded. Evans and Price later resigned, with Price citing a family matter and upcoming surgery as his reasons for leaving his role as a District voting representative on the board.
Two House Republicans sent a letter Monday to Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings asking for Evans to testify at the Thursday hearing. They wrote that Evans needs to be questioned, because he would effectively become a state legislator if D.C. were to become a state.