DC Mayor Muriel Bowser said that residents of the nation’s capital “have been denied the fundamental right promised to all Americans,” which is the right to full representation in Congress, in her address to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform on Monday.
Bowser’s speech came during the Committee’s hearing on H.R. 51, the Washington, DC Admission Act, which proposes the District of Columbia to be granted statehood.
“Today, I come to urge this committee and this Congress to move beyond the tired, non-factual anti-DC Statehood rhetoric and extend full democracy to the residents of the District of Columbia as the founding fathers intended,” Mayor Bowser said.
“I was born in Washington, DC and generations of my family – through no choice of our own – have been denied the fundamental right promised to all Americans: the right to full representation in the Congress. The simple fact is, denying American citizens a vote in the body that taxes them goes against the founding principles of this great nation,” she added.
Nearly 3/4 of the states in the Union have been admitted by Congress and not one by Constitutional amendment. I stand with @EleanorNorton, @MayorBowser & the more than 700,000 disenfranchised Washingtonians who deserve #DCstatehood: pic.twitter.com/JFYeRsLWAk
— Rep. Jamie Raskin (@RepRaskin) March 22, 2021
According to Bowser, Article I of the Constitution is does not prevent DC’s statehood, because under the current bill, a “federal district” would remain for the federal government, its buildings and its workings; and the rest of the area would become the separate state.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who reintroduced the DC statehood bill, also advocated for the legislation before the lawmakers.
“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,” Norton said. “D.C. residents deserve full voting representation in the Senate and the House and complete control over their local affairs. They deserve statehood.”
Together with other Democrats, Bowser and Holmes pointed out that the District’s population — more than 700,000 — surpasses that of Vermont and Wyoming, and its residents pay more total federal taxes than 22 states, and more federal taxes per capita than any state.
House Republicans, on the other hand, questioned the constitutionality of the bill and asserted that Democrats were seeking a power grab by making DC the 51st state.
In 2020, a very similar bill passed the House in a historic vote, but failed to be approved at the Republican-controlled Senate at the time.