Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the party is always right.
House Democrats Pass Bill To Make D.C. The 51st State
Please, please get rid of the filibuster, like NOW. The sky is the limit afterwards.
The U.S. House of Representatives has once again voted on a bill to grant statehood to Washington, D.C., and enfranchise more than 712,000 Americans, a cause that enjoys unprecedented support but still faces an uphill battle in the U.S. Senate.
"This country was founded on the principles of no taxation without representation and consent of the governed. But D.C. residents are taxed without representation and cannot consent to the laws under which they as American citizens must live", said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District's nonvoting delegate, on the House floor ahead of the vote.
Her statehood bill, H.R. 51, would reduce the size of the federal district and create a new state with the remaining territory with two U.S. senators and a representative, placing residents on equal footing with voters in other states. Statehood advocates contend the cause is also a fight for racial justice. If admitted, Washington, D.C., would be the first state with a plurality of Black residents.
"The folks who live in the beacon of democracy that is the nation's capitol don't have a voice", says Ravi Perry, chair of the political science department at Howard University and board member of DC Vote, a statehood advocacy organization.
House Democrats passed Norton's bill last year in a historic vote, but the legislation never reached the GOP-led Senate.
Now, with Democrats controlling the White House and the Senate, the effort to make D.C. the 51st star on the nation's flag has more support than ever before — even though it is unclear whether the measure has the backing of all 50 Democratic senators, let alone 60 votes in all, for it to pass in the Senate.
It passed the House on Thursday 216-208 along party lines.
The U.S. House of Representatives has once again voted on a bill to grant statehood to Washington, D.C., and enfranchise more than 712,000 Americans, a cause that enjoys unprecedented support but still faces an uphill battle in the U.S. Senate.
