After debate, House votes to make D.C. a state
REP. CAROLYN MALONEY (D-NY): “D.C. residents are Americans and they deserve the equal rights our national ideals promised them.”
The House of Representatives on Thursday voted along party lines to make the District of Columbia the 51st U.S. state.
By a vote of 216-208, the Democratic-controlled House approved the initiative.
But not without some heated debate… as all House Republicans voted against the move.
REP. JAMES COMER (R-KY): “HR 51 provides no guarantee to the American people that they will not be on the hook for funding the new state for years, if not decades. This bill is nothing more than an attempt to ignore the constitutional process and gain an advantage in the U.S. Senate.”
Since the majority of Washington, D.C. residents lean Democratic, as a state, it likely would elect two Democratic senators… altering the balance of power in the Senate.
But Democrats argued statehood would right the wrongs of DC’s slogan: “taxation without representation”… Giving the right to vote-in members of Congress to more than 700,000 American citizens.
Half of whom - as New York lawmaker Mondaire Jones pointed out - are Black.
“One Senate Republican said that D.C. wouldn’t be a ‘well rounded working class state.’ I had no idea there were so many syllables in the word ‘white.’"
Jones slammed Republican opposition to statehood for the nation’s capital, suggesting racism was at play:
“One of my House Republican colleagues said that DC shouldn’t be a state because the district doesn’t have a landfill. My goodness, with all the racist trash my colleagues have brought to this debate I can see why they're worried about having a place to put it."
Republicans quickly objected to Jones’ words. And he was asked to withdraw them.
"Mr. Speaker, that's fine."
But, Jones didn’t end there…
“These desperate objections are about fear. Fear that in D.C., their white supremacist politics will no longer play.”
Republicans, accusing Democrats of a "power grab" to advance a "far-left" agenda, are expected to block the bill in the Senate, where 60 of 100 members need to agree to advance most legislation.
