The House on Friday voted to establish the District of Columbia as the nation’s 51st state, marking the first time that either chamber of Congress has agreed to give congressional representation to the nation’s capital. All but one Democrat voted in favor of D.C. statehood, elevating a decades-old push that has gained prominence in recent weeks as a glaring example of how a large Black population has long been disenfranchised. Zero Republicans backed the bill on the 232-180 vote. The bill would allow D.C. — a city of 700,000 that has historically voted Democratic — to elect one member to the House and two to the Senate. Republicans have staunchly opposed the move, which would mark a seismic shift in the upper chamber by adding two senators, likely to benefit Democrats for years to come. But Democrats bristled at the GOP’s rationale for opposition. “That shouldn’t be how we have enfranchisement in our country — what’s the nature of our vote?” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters. “They talk about the ‘toos’ — too black, too Democrat, whatever.” “The fact is people in the District of Columbia pay taxes, fight our wars, risk their lives for our democracy and yet, in this state they have no say, they have no vote in the House or Senate about whether we go to war and how those taxes are exacted,” Pelosi continued. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has vowed he won’t take up the bill in the GOP-controlled Senate, even going so far as to compare D.C. statehood to “full-bore socialism.” Other Republicans have denigrated the character of Americans living in the nation’s capital. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) took to the Senate floor on Thursday to argue that Wyoming — despite its smaller population of 500,000 people — deserved its voting rights because it is a “working class state” rather than a haven for lobbyists and the “bureaucracy” of federal workers. “This is about power, that’s what this is about. Make no mistake about it,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said on the House floor Friday. Democrats, led by Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, have filed statehood bills for decades, arguing that D.C. residents should have the same political power as others in the United States. But even Democrats had been divided on the issue until recent years. The House last voted on D.C. statehood in 1993, when more than 100 Democrats opposed the move — including now-House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). Since then, however, the Democratic Party has embraced D.C. statehood as a civil rights and voting rights issue for a city that had a majority Black population until this decade. “The people who call our nation’s capital home have been disenfranchised and shortchanged for too long,” Hoyer said in a passionate speech on the floor evoking nationwide calls for justice for Black Americans, noting that D.C. has historically been “one of our largest African American cities.” Hoyer also pointed out that Congress’ massive coronavirus response law delivered at least $1.25 billion to each state but only $500 million in aid to D.C. because it was categorized as a territory for federal funding purposes. Some activists are already looking ahead to another fight. Puerto Rico, which has been a U.S. territory since 1898, has a population of nearly 3.2 million people with no voting rights in Congress.
Wont pass now,but in January with Biden in office and Dems controlling The Senate its a top Dem priority and will pass than. DC will be one of the most liberal states in The Union.2 permanent Democrat Senators,a new House seat and a few democrat electoral votes. Probably wont stop there,Puerto Rico is probably next.Puerto Rico would also be a liberal state with 2 permanent Democrat Senators,House seats and democrat electoral votes.
The Founding Fathers were so vocal about the Nations Capital not being inside a State or a State, it was drafted into the Constitution. DC sits unique by design. I think it will take a Constitutional amendment. https://time.com/4296175/washington-dc-statehood-history/
Democrats have come up with a creative constitutional workaround. H.R. 51, the bill to be voted on next Friday, purports to shrink the District of Columbia to just the few blocks along the National Mall containing the various federal government buildings, such as the White House, the Capitol, the Supreme Court, plus the “principal federal monuments.” The rest of the city would be rechristened “Washington, Douglass Commonwealth,” and admitted as the 51st state.
Though the amendment states that “the District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as Congress may direct . . . a number of electors” (federal and DC law establish that these electors are chosen in a popular election), the amendment never states that the boundaries of this district cannot be expanded or contracted by statehood legislation. Indeed, the DC statehood bill does not eliminate the “District constituting the seat of Government,” it merely shrinks it to a much smaller area that includes many of the buildings where the federal government conducts official business. The 23rd Amendment does create one potential anomaly. If the DC statehood bill passes, the new state would be entitled to representation in the Electoral College just like any other state. Meanwhile, the rump federal district would also be entitled to three electoral votes under the 23rd Amendment. But there’s an easy fix for this problem. Because the 23rd Amendment provides that the federal district’s electors shall be appointed “in such manner as Congress may direct,” Congress could simply pass a law providing that these three electoral votes will go to whichever presidential candidate would otherwise win the Electoral College — or, even better, Congress could award these three votes to the national popular vote winner, thus reducing the likelihood that the loser of the popular vote will become president. There is, in other words, no good constitutional argument against DC statehood. As Viet Dinh, who served as an assistant attorney general under President George W. Bush, told a Senate hearing in 2014, “nothing in the Twenty-Third Amendment prohibits the admission of [DC as a state]. Because the [DC statehood bill] will preserve a federal ‘District constituting the seat of Government of the United States.’”
Conservative and Liberal sections of various States have wanted to breakoff and form their own. Every election cycle has this type of debate. It will never pass, and if it did would quickly be struck down by SCOTUS.