House passes DC statehood bill to make district 51st state after heated floor debate
From WWW.FOXNEWS.COM
The divided House Thursday passed legislation to make Washington, D. C., the 51st state and to grant its more than 700,000 residents full representation in Congress.
The strictly party-line vote in the House was 216 to 208, with all Republicans rejecting the statehood bill, dubbed H. R. 51. The legislation has support from President Biden but faces long odds of passing in the 50-50 split Senate.
Debate over statehood got particularly heated on the House floor Thursday when New York Democrat Rep. Mondaire Jones accused certain Republicans of being against D. C. statehood because the district was not White enough in their minds to qualify for self-rule.
"I have had enough of my colleagues' racist insinuations that somehow that people of Washington, D. C., are incapable or even unworthy of our democracy," Jones said in a floor speech that drew a quick rebuke from Republicans. "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."
D. C. is 46% Black and 46% White, according to 2019 Census estimates.
Jones continued: "One of my House Republican colleagues said that D. C. 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 immediately asked for Jones' words to be struck, and the freshman Democrat ultimately agreed to withdraw his statements.
Prior to that dustup on the floor, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., cheered the statehood passage as a "momentous day for American democracy." Democrats argued statehood was a matter of civil rights and a necessary step to right a historic injustice of taxing D. C. residents without affording them any representation in Congress.
"Statehood for the District of Columbia is about showing respect for our democracy," Pelosi said.
"It's well past the time to grant them the rights that they have been fighting for and that they deserve," she added.
Republicans, however, argued that because Washington, D. C.’s establishment is constitutionally based, any change to the district must come in the form of a constitutional amendment – not legislation from Congress. And the GOP panned statehood as a power grab by Democrats to expand the majority in the Senate by adding two more senators from a liberal enclave.
"Let's be clear what H. R. 51 is all about: It's about Democrats adding two new progressive U.S. senators to push a radical agenda championed by the Squad to reshape America into the socialist utopia they always talk about," said Rep. James Comer, R-Ky.
D. C. statehood already passed the House last June but it died in the GOP-led Senate. The chances of becoming law are better now with supportive Democrats in charge of both the Senate and White House, but the Senate remains the biggest challenge because of the legislative filibuster that requires 60 votes to advance legislation.
But many Dem... (Read more)
Tweets mentioned:
Submitted 1093 days ago
Latest News