US House passes DC statehood bill News
Lorie Shaull from Washington, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
US House passes DC statehood bill

The United States House of Representatives on Thursday passed a bill to establish Washington DC as the the nation’s fifty-first state in a 216 to 218 vote.

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, who represents the District of Columbia and its 700,000 residents, introduced HR 51 in January. As the District of Columbia’s representative, Norton can serve on committees and sponsor bills, but she cannot participate in final floor votes to pass legislation.

The bill would give the state of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, “equal footing” with all other states and would earn the new Commonwealth two senators and one representative with full voting power. Some territory, including the Capitol Building and the White House, would be excluded from the new Commonwealth and remain the seat of the federal government.

In a 2016 referendum, District of Columbia residents voted overwhelmingly in support of statehood.

The bill comes at a time filled with discussion of voting rights and disenfranchisement. Supporters of the bill argue that the District of Columbia is not properly represented in Congress despite having a larger population than Vermont and Wyoming. Senator Chuck Schumer said the bill is “about democracy. It’s about self-government. It’s about voting rights.”

Despite passage in the House and key support from Schumer, the bill is unlikely to pass in the evenly divided Senate.

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