DC statehood faces crucial congressional vote
WASHINGTON — A decadeslong movement to reshape the American political map took a further step Thursday as the House of Representatives approved a bill to make the nation’s capital the 51st state.
Voting along party lines with minority Republicans in opposition, the House approved the bill 216-208. That’s likely the easy part, though. The proposal faces a far tougher fight in the Senate.
The legislation proposes creating a 51st state with one representative and two senators, while a tiny sliver of land including the White House, the U.S. Capitol and the National Mall would remain as a federal district. Instead of the District of Columbia, the new state would be known as Washington, Douglass Commonwealth — named after famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
An identical statehood bill passed the House in 2020, but it quickly died in the then-republican-controlled Senate. Now, with the 2020 elections leaving Democrats in control of both chambers and the White House, Republican senators may resort to a filibuster to stymie the statehood bill.
The measure has received strong support from President Joe Biden’s White House, which released a statement Tuesday calling Washington’s current status “an affront to the democratic values on which our Nation was founded.”
The bill is certain to face GOP pushback, given that the proposed 51st state would be overwhelmingly Democratic.
D.C. has long chafed under its relationship with Congress, which has the power to essentially veto or alter any local laws. Its population is larger than that of Wyoming or Vermont and its estimated 712,000 residents pay federal taxes, vote for president and serve in the armed forces, but they have no voting representation in Congress.