EDITORIAL – Our View: Maine senators should back D.C. statehood

Every American has one representative in Congress and two senators, who are elected to look out for their interests in the national government.

Every American, that is, except for the 700,000 people who live in Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital.

D.C. statehood supporters demonstrate in Washington last year. Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post, File

Having an island of disenfranchisement so prominently placed in a country that promotes democracy around the world is an embarrassment. The fact that a plurality of these unrepresented Americans are African Americans is a human rights disgrace. After 250 years of chattel slavery and nearly a century of Jim Crow, allowing the people of D.C. to elect their own representatives is long overdue.

Fortunately, we can finally do something about it. The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill that would turn Washington, D.C., into Washington Douglass Commonwealth, the 51st state.