The House of Representatives have passed a bill Thursday that would grant statehood to Washington, D.C. The measure now faces the Senate, where it is unlikely to get the Republican support needed for 60 votes to pass.
The bill, H.R. 51, was introduced by Eleanor Holmes Norton, who is DC’s non-voting House member.
It would make the area the 51st state while maintaining a Federal District that encompasses the country’s national government buildings.
“This bill provides for admission into the United States of the state of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, composed of most of the territory of the District of Columbia. The commonwealth shall be admitted to the Union on an equal footing with the other states,” the measure states.
Earlier this week, the Biden administration released a statement in support of the measure.
“For far too long, the more than 700,000 people of Washington, D.C. have been deprived of full representation in the U.S. Congress,” the statement reads. “This taxation without representation and denial of self-governance is an affront to the democratic values on which our Nation was founded.”
The District of Columbia has more than an estimated 705,000 residents, which, according to 2019 data, is more people than the State of Vermont or the State of Wyoming.
