Home Committee is anticipated to go the DC Statehood Invoice

The House Oversight Committee is expected to pass a measure that will make Washington DC the 51st state in the country. Representative Carolyn Maloney (DN.Y.), chair of the Oversight and Reform Committee, and Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton, a committee member who has represented Washington, DC as a delegate since 1991, will hold a hearing at 10 a.m.

“HR 51 would add Washington State, Douglass Commonwealth, to the union and reduce the size of the federal district. The bill has 215 co-sponsors and was an identical version passed from the House of Representatives in the 116th Congress, ”reads the House Oversight Committee website.

Norton, who introduced the bill, discovered that DC “Pays more federal taxes per capita than any other state … and pays more federal taxes than 22 states.”

“Congress can no longer allow DC residents to be incapacitated in the democratic process by watching Congress vote on matters that affect the nation without having a say, or by Congress voting to promote the laws of the overthrow properly elected DC councils with no telling themselves, “argued Norton during a hearing last month. “Full democracy requires a lot more.”

According to a survey Led by Data for Progress and the progressive advocacy coalition Democracy for All 2021 Action and first shared with CBS News, 54% of likely voters think Washington, DC should be a state. 74% of Democratic respondents are in favor of DC statehood. Just over a third (34%) of Republicans support this as well. City voters (57%) and suburban voters (56%) as well as 57% of voters living in swing states clearly support this.

The bill is likely to stall in an evenly divided Senate.

Senate Democrats reintroduced a bill earlier this year to give DC statehood.

Alan is a New York-based writer, editor, and news junkie.