House passes DC statehood bill that faces long odds in the Senate

“We know well the grave injustices our nation was built on,” Bowser said in a statement Thursday after the vote passed. “We also know that progress has been made time and time again because elected leaders and everyday citizens had the courage and vision to demand a more inclusive democracy.”

The bill, sponsored by Washington Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, boasts 216 co-sponsors, all of whom are Democrats. The new state would encompass all of the District of Columbia, except for the strip of land on which the White House, the Capital building, the Supreme Court and the national mall are located.

A prior version, H.R. 51, passed through the House in last year’s Congress, marking the first time that either chamber had approved a bid for D.C. statehood. But that legislation stalled in the Senate, led at the time by Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who refused to bring it to a vote.

In the wake of the 2020 election, Democrats gained a razor-thin majority in the Senate. The body is now split 50-50 between the two parties, with Vice President Kamala Harris wielding the tie-breaking vote.

But the filibuster, which requires 60 votes to pass most legislation, would likely thwart any attempt to pass the statehood bill in the Senate by a simple majority. Additionally, a handful of moderate Democratic senators, including Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema, have yet to signal how they would vote.

The bill is also highly unlikely to find support from Republicans, who accuse Democrats of trying to ensconce themselves in power through brute force.

Washington is one of the most liberal cities in the nation. If it became a state, Washington would add two reliably Democratic seats to the Senate, making it exponentially harder for the GOP to win back majority control.

With the face of the U.S. political map on the table, critics balk at Democrats’ insistence that their motivations are of principle and not politics.

“San Francisco will never vote Republican but will do so before D.C. does,” conservative columnist George Will said in The Washington Post on Wednesday. “Does anyone believe that if D.C. were as incorrigibly Republican as it is Democratic, Democrats would favor D.C. statehood, which would mean two more Republican senators until the last trumpet shall sound?”

Many Republican lawmakers have voiced their opposition more bluntly.

Statehood “is nothing more than an unconstitutional power grab by Democrats to gain two ultra-progressive D.C Senate seats [and] enforce radical, far-left policies on the American people,” Rep. Guy Reschenthaler, R-Pa., said on the House floor.

Others have asserted that Washington’s small size and arguable lack of diverse industry disqualify it from statehood. Rep. Jody Hice, R-Ga., argued at last month’s hearing on the bill that D.C. “would be the only state, the only state, without an airport, without a car dealership, without a capital city, without a landfill.”

Democrats and fact-checkers pointed out the district does have car dealerships.

No Republican senators have indicated they would support making the district a state. Some opponents, however, have proposed an alternative in the form of retrocession, which would have the neighboring state of Maryland absorb most of Washington.

Democrats oppose that idea. Norton said in February that retrocession “would be inconsistent” with Washington’s “pursuit of self-determination.”

“D.C. statehood does not require a constitutional amendment,” Norton added, responding to another complaint about the statehood bill. “Under the Constitution, Congress has the authority to admit new states, and every new state has been admitted by Congress.”

With Republicans dead set on retaking Congress in 2022 and with the filibuster likely standing in the way of huge chunks of the Democratic agenda, a growing chorus within the party is calling for the 60-vote rule to be abolished or reformed.

“There are no provisions in the Constitution about a filibuster,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said in an interview published Wednesday in the Washingtonian about the statehood bill.

“So, frankly, I think that filibuster rule ought to be eliminated in the United States so that democracy can prevail,” Hoyer said.

But Manchin has vowed to oppose any efforts to scrap or weaken the filibuster, setting back Democrats’ hopes to pass huge agenda items through Congress without Republican votes.

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/22/house-to-vote-on-dc-statehood-bill-that-faces-long-odds-in-the-senate.html