NPR, March 22, 2021, With Stronger Democratic Support, D.C. Statehood Fight Returns To Capitol Hill
Thirty years after Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton first introduced a bill for Washington, D.C., statehood, she returns to Capitol Hill to do it again — this time with the broadest support for the cause to date.
“We’ve gotten off of the wish list to an approach of a new reality,” Norton, the district’s nonvoting delegate, told NPR.
Her legislation, H.R. 51, was the subject of a House Oversight Committee hearing on Monday. It was approved by the Democratic-led House in a historic vote last year but never reached the GOP-controlled Senate. And although Democrats now hold a slim majority in the Senate, the measure faces long odds in the upper chamber.
The bill would reduce the size of the federal district and admit the state of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth — in honor of the abolitionist Frederick Douglass — into the union. Advocates contend the statehood cause is a fight for racial justice as the majority of D.C.’s 700,000 residents are people of color.
