Democrats Press for D.C. Statehood as Part of Voting Rights Agenda
WASHINGTON — House Democrats put new weight on Monday behind their push to grant statehood to Washington, D.C., convening a key House panel to make the case in the latest sign that the long-suffering movement has shifted from the political fringe to the center of the party’s voting rights agenda.
At a hearing before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, local officials argued that the deadly Capitol riot — during which the mayor was powerless to quickly call in the National Guard, as a governor would have been able to do — provided new evidence that the District of Columbia and its more than 700,000 taxpaying residents needed federal representation.
The panel was considering a bill that the House passed last summer to establish for the first time a 51st state — called Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, in honor of Frederick Douglass — with two senators and a voting representative in the House. The legislation would leave the National Mall, the White House, Capitol Hill and some other federal properties under congressional jurisdiction.
“Congress can no longer allow D.C. residents to be sidelined in the democratic process, watching as Congress votes on matters that affect the nation with no say of their own, or watching as Congress votes to overturn the laws of the duly elected D.C. Council with no say of their own,” said Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia’s lone nonvoting delegate. “Full democracy requires much more.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/22/us/politics/democrats-dc-statehood.html
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