In a historic move, the U.S. House of Representatives voted in late June to make the District of Columbia a state. The D.C. Admission Act (H.R. 51), introduced by the District’s long-serving, nonvoting Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, would make D.C. the 51st state, allowing it to hold elections for two senators and one representative. The new state would be renamed “Washington, Douglass Commonwealth.”
The bill passed the House by a largely party-line vote of 232-180. No Republicans voted for the bill, which conservatives have decried as a “power grab” by Democrats (one Democrat, Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, voted against it).
Democrats argue that the District should have voting representation in Congress given the size of its population, which is larger than that of Wyoming and Vermont, and its economic contributions to the country. For example, the District pays more in federal taxes than 22 states, and its per capita personal income and gross domestic product numbers rank higher than any other state.
“The United States is the only democratic country that denies both voting rights in the national legislature and local autonomy to the residents of the nation’s capital,” Norton said on the House floor.
She also highlighted recent events in which the nation’s capital and its residents were subject to unequal treatment due to the District’s lack of statehood. D.C. received less than half the amount of coronavirus relief money allocated to states in the CARES Act passed in March because it was considered a territory and not a state. Second, Norton recounted the occupation of D.C. by federal police and out-of-state National Guard troops during the protests in response to George Floyd’s death in May.
“The federal occupation of D.C. occurred solely because the president thought he could get away with it here,” Norton said. “He was wrong.”
In a Washington Post editorial, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser also pointed to the National Guard troops as a reason for statehood. “There shouldn’t be federal forces advancing against Americans, and there very definitely shouldn’t be soldiers stationed around our city waiting for the go to attack Americans in a local policing matter,” she wrote. “Without full voting representation in Congress, our local autonomy, which we achieved through limited Home Rule in 1973, is regularly trampled on and threatened by representatives visiting our city from states across the nation. We see this meddling in our local affairs through legislative riders that prevent us from using federal funds to pay for reproductive health care or from setting up a system to tax and regulate the sale of recreational cannabis.”
D.C. residents have struggled for statehood for decades. The last time the House voted on the issue was in 1993, when it failed in a 153-277 vote. The issue has especially been embraced by civil rights advocates because the District’s population is roughly 46% African American. Advocates have argued that denying statehood and representation is a form of racism. “This deprivation of statehood is unjust, unequal, undemocratic and unacceptable,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) during a press conference announcing the vote on the bill.
Meanwhile, some Republicans strongly oppose the issue, arguing that the move could “dilute” the power of more rural, conservative-leaning states in Congress given the likelihood that District residents would vote for Democratic congressional representatives (in the 2016 presidential election, Democrat Hillary Clinton won 91% of the District’s votes compared to just 4% for Republican Donald Trump).
“This is not about enfranchising people,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who along with Sens. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) held a press conference to denounce the House’s vote. “This is about expanding the Senate map to accommodate the most radical agenda that I have ever seen.”
President Trump also opposes the move and told the New York Post in May that D.C. would never become a state. “They want to do that so they pick up two automatic Democrat [sic] — you know it’s a 100 percent Democrat, basically — so why would the Republicans ever do that? That’ll never happen unless we have some very, very stupid Republicans around that I don’t think you do.” Trump has also said that he would veto the bill.
The likelihood of the legislation reaching the president’s desk, however, is low given that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has said that he will not take up the measure.
For more background, see the May 2007 issue of Congressional Digest on “D.C. Voting Representation.”
