D.C. statehood bill passes in the House

The House on Friday passed a bill giving the District of Columbia statehood, the first time either chamber of Congress has passed any bill that would make the nation’s capital a state.

Members of Congress cheered as Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, Maryland Democrat, announced that the bill had passed 232-180. The vote was along party lines, with one Democrat, Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, voting against it.

However, the legislation stands little chance of passing the Republican-controlled Senate.

The bill would turn most of the present District of Columbia into a new state called Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, entitled to two senators and a voting member of the House. The federal district would be reduced to about two square miles in area, made up of the White House, the Capitol, the National Mall and the Supreme Court.

“The United States is the only democratic country that denies both voting rights in its national legislature and local autonomy to the residents of the nation’s capital,” Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District’s nonvoting member of Congress, said on the House floor Friday during debate.

Mrs. Norton said Congress has both a moral obligation and the constitutional authority to make the District a state.

She and other Democrats made a number of arguments in favor of statehood: The District pays more federal taxes per capita than any other state, it has a triple-A bond rating, higher than 35 states and a budget larger than 12 states. Congress has adjusted the size of the District before, and 37 other states have been admitted to the union by Congress.

Members of Congress supporting statehood wore black face coverings that had an outline of the District with the number 51 on top.

House Republicans argued that making the District a state was not the intent of the Constitution’s framers and that it’s a partisan attempt to get two additional Democratic senators. They also suggested the District become a part of Maryland.

“The nerve of hundreds of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle thinking it’s their land, it’s Maryland’s land,” said Rep. Andy Harris, the only Republican in Maryland’s congressional delegation.

Mrs. Norton dismissed the idea that D.C. is Maryland’s land, as the state gave the land to the federal government.

“Maryland doesn’t want D.C. and D.C doesn’t want to be in Maryland,” said Rep. Gerald Connolly, Virginia Democrat.

Republicans also argued that Congress should focus on more important legislation.

“It’s time for Congress to get back to full-time work and take up the pressing issues of this country, not play unconstitutional games,” said Rep. James Comer, Kentucky Republican, suggesting that Congress instead focus on overhauling law enforcement.

However, the legislation stands little chance of passing the Republican-controlled Senate. And the White House has said President Trump would veto the bill.