A Senate committee will hold a D.C. statehood hearing on June 22. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) and former Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman (I) are among the speakers addressing the committee. Kojo and Tom talk with Bo Shuff, executive director of D.C. Vote, about the hearing and what comes next.
LISTEN TO THE FULL INTERVIEW WITH EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR BO SHUFF AT WAMU.ORG
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.
There are more than 700,000 Americans living within a 68-square-mile area who have no elected representation in Congress. They are allowed to vote in presidential elections only for Electoral College electors, not the candidates themselves. Congress can and often does intervene in the local governance of this area.
This population is bigger than those of Vermont and Wyoming and just a bit smaller than those of Alaska and North Dakota. If you haven’t guessed already, these Americans live in the District of Columbia.
There are no objections to D.C. statehood that outweigh lack of elected representation for hundreds of thousands of America citizens.
D.C. residents have long sought statehood. Some like Eleanor Holmes Norton, the district’s nonvoting representative in Congress, have made it their life’s work. For every one of the past 14 years she has introduced a bill to grant statehood to the district. (Holmes Norton, by the way, is allowed to sit in the House and vote in committee only. So toothless is her position that she was not permitted a floor vote on her own bill.) This time, it actually passed the House with more than 200 cosponsors, and President Joe Biden has said he will sign it if it comes to his desk.
Washington — The House voted Thursday on a bill that would admit Washington, D.C., as the 51st state, although the measure is likely to fail in the evenly divided Senate. The legislation passed along party lines with a vote of 216 to 208, with no Republicans voting in favor.
For the bill’s advocates, D.C. statehood is a civil rights issue. The district has a population of more than 700,000 people, larger than the population of Wyoming or Vermont. But while those two states each have two senators and a representative in the House, D.C. has no voting representation in Congress. Eleanor Holmes Norton represents D.C. in Congress as a non-voting delegate.
Statehood advocates also point out that D.C. pays more in federal taxes than 21 states and more per capita than any state, according to 2019 IRS data. The district is also diverse, with a population that is 46% Black and majority nonwhite. If admitted, it would be the first state with a plurality Black population.
It’s difficult to walk around Washington, DC, without spotting at least one car with a license plate reading “taxation without representation.” The callback to the American Revolution’s rallying cry is also a reference to the reality that the roughly 700,000 people who reside in the nation’s capital have no representation in Congress despite paying federal taxes.
Now, in a party-line vote, House Democrats have approved DC statehood, sending the bill to the Democrat-controlled Senate — where even a party-line vote would not be sufficient to send the legislation to President Joe Biden’s desk. And that itself isn’t guaranteed; according to reporting by Politico, not all 50 Democratic senators have signaled their support for the bill (the five outstanding are Sens. Angus King (ME), Joe Manchin (WV), Kyrsten Sinema (AZ), Mark Kelly (AZ), and Jeanne Shaheen (NH)).
MEDIA ADVISORY:
April 22, 2021
PRESS CONTACT:
Will Soltero
[email protected]
WASHINGTON — Today, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to pass H.R. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act. Leading statehood organization DC Vote released the following statement:
April 22, 2021 is a date Washingtonians will never forget, as this is the day the People’s House voted in the name of liberty, equality and ultimately Statehood for the people of Washington, D.C.
The people of the United States demand statehood for their fellow Americans residing in the nation’s capital, and today’s vote will cement that truth in our history books. This moment would not be possible without the leadership of Rep. Eleanor Holmes-Norton and DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, DC’s representatives in our quest for representation, as well as the activists and advocates throughout the country who’ve championed this issue—of representation, of racial justice and of equality under the law—as their own.
With the power of the President and the House unified behind this cause, DC Statehood will now appear before the Senate. With a record-breaking 45 co-sponsors, S. 51 must be promptly provided a hearing and ultimately, a vote in the upper chamber of our Congress. The people of Washington, D.C. deserve Statehood, and the eyes of a nation rest on the Senate to deliver.
