Democrats emboldened by their control of the US House, Senate and White House launched a fresh push yesterday for statehood for the nation’s capital Washington, beginning with a high-profile congressional hearing addressing the issue.
More than 700,000 Americans live in the District of Columbia, a Democratic stronghold with a population greater than two states, Wyoming and Vermont, and comparable to two others.
However, while capital residents can cast ballots in US presidential elections, they have no voting representation in Congress.
“The sun is rising, DC! On behalf of 712,000 residents, we will demand full citizenship today,” Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, the top witness before the House Oversight Committee beginning at 11am (1500 GMT), said on Twitter ahead of the hearing.
It will be a long, uphill road for statehood, and the bill is not expected to win approval in the evenly-divided Senate, where Republicans are likely to block the measure through use of a filibuster manoeuvre.
However, Democrats are using their control of Congress to highlight the issue.
And polling from February by Data For Progress shows 54% of likely voters nationwide believe Washington DC should be a state, a record level of support.
Washingtonians gathered on several street corners early yesterday to proclaim their support for statehood.
In the shadow of the US Capitol they chanted “No more wait for a DC state!” and “51 in 21!” as some held up placards demanding “statehood for the people of DC”.
Last June in a historic vote, the House of Representatives passed the symbolically-titled bill HR 51, which would create the state of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, named for 19th century abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
The measure died in the Republican-controlled Senate.
With the Senate now in the hands of Democrats and President Joe Biden in the White House, the party is seizing the momentum.
Biden himself backs the initiative.
“He believes they deserve representation, that’s why he supports DC statehood,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Thursday last week.
Eleanor Holmes Norton, who represents the district in the House as a non-voting delegate, reintroduced the measure earlier this year.
“As support and majorities for HR 51 grow with the exposure today’s hearing will again give our bill, we dare believe that statehood is on the horizon,” Norton said yesterday.
The DC statehood measure would give the capital two US senators as well as a voting representative in the House.
Democratic lawmakers frame the bill as an overdue remedy to disenfranchisement perpetuated since Congress made Washington the nation’s permanent capital in 1790, and a longstanding civil rights issue for a city that’s nearly 50% black.
Republicans who oppose the effort say it runs counter to the intent of the framers of the US Constitution who sought to create a unique federal district not influenced by any state.
“Washington DC was set apart as a seat of government, not as a part of the federation of states that the constitution grants us,” Republican Jody Hice said last year.
Washington officials have long bristled at Congress’s role in the capital’s affairs, as the US Constitution grants Congress the right to exercise control over the city’s business “in all cases whatsoever”.
US Stars and Stripe flags with 51 stars (an extra star for the District of Columbia) are set up on poles on Black Lives Matter Plaza next to the White House in Washington, DC.
