(25 Jun 2020) FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: apus138777
The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives will vote Friday to pass a bill on District of Columbia statehood, the first time such a bill will pass either house of Congress.
Making the District of Columbia the 51st state is an issue Democrats say has become far more important in the aftermath of protests for racial justice in both Washington and across the nation.
During a press conference ahead of Friday's vote on Washington DC becoming the 51st state House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters "partial citizenship is not an option. We can't deal away the rights of an American simply because they live in the District of Columbia."
A plurality of the District of Columbia is African American, and the city is overwhelmingly Democratic.
"The option is to recognize 706,000 people as full and equal citizens of the United States of America with voting rights in the capital, in their parliament, Hoyer said."
The legislation faces insurmountable opposition in the GOP-controlled Senate.
It comes even as the COVID-19 pandemic has forced delays in the consideration of most other legislation.
More than enough lawmakers are officially backing the bill for it to pass.
At the center of the demand for DC statehood is the democratic ideal that the 700,000 Americans that live in the nation's capital -- more than those Americans in Wyoming or Vermont — pay taxes and do not have voting representation in Congress.
Many Republicans as well as President Donald Trump are against the bill H.R.51, and presume it will not be considered in the Senate.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said that the bill represents the chance for democrats to gain two more seats in the senate and precludes it will not get a vote in that chamber.
President Trump has said he would veto the legislation if it ever came to his desk. Trump said last month that "D.C. will never be a state" because it would likely mean two more Democratic senators. "No, thank you. That'll never happen," he told the New York Post.
Hoyer said the rights of D.C. residents should transcend political calculations.
"Nobody thought that states would be admitted on the basis of their politics, he said. "Rather, they would be admitted on the basic premise of their citizenship as Americans."
Washington Mayor Muriel has pointed out that D.C. taxpayers get no voting representatives in Congress despite contributing more in federal taxes on a per person basis than many states.
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