Now eyes are on the Senate
On Thursday, The House of Representatives passed legislation that would make Washington, D.C., become the 51st state in the United States, with all members voting with their party within Democrat-majority chamber.
Now, everyone is looking to the Senate, where Democrats also hold control but do not seem to have the votes they need to pass the bill.
House Democrats voted without opposition— 216 to 208 — for the bill that was named H.R. 51 to indicate its goal in making the District of Columbia the 51st state.
The Constitution mandates that the seat of government be federally controlled, which would need a constitutional convention to change. But advocates say H.R. 51 circumvents that need by simply decreasing the federally controlled district to a two-mile sector that includes the White House, the U.S. Capitol, some national monuments and other federal buildings.
If the bill is passed into law, the rest of Washington, D.C., would become the State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, after abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
As of now, residents of Washington, D.C., can vote in presidential elections and the District has a House Delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, but she can’t vote on legislation.
With statehood, D.C. would have two senators and one representative, further establishing the Democratic Party’s latest power in the federal government given the massive probability that the district remains deep-blue.
As The Hill reported, President Biden “won the District’s three electoral votes in last year’s election with 92 percent of the vote.”
Democrats claim that D.C. residents presently suffer from “taxation without representation,” while Republicans are calling D.C. statehood a power move from the left.
This is the second time H.R. 51 has passed the House, and the first time was just last session when it was put to an end in the Senate — which at the time controlled by Republicans. Now, Democrats see more drive behind it.
The Washington Post reported that “Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer promised Tuesday that ‘we will try to work a path to get [statehood] done,’ and the White House asked Congress in a policy statement to pass the legislation as swiftly as possible.”
Even with support from Democratic leaders, the bill will go against an uphill climb in the 50-50 upper chamber, which currently needs sixty votes to pass most legislation.
Even if Democrats were able to get rid of the filibuster as many on the far-left have pushed to do, moderate Democrats such as Senator Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have so far avoided from commenting on H.R. 1.
When asked by CNN about the legislation on Thursday, Manchin replied, “I got so many things on my plate that I haven’t even gotten to that yet.”
Sinema’s office told The Post the senator “does not preview votes,” when questioned about her stance on statehood.