House votes to make Washington, DC the 51st state; Senate opposes
Mayor Muriel Bowser, rides a bus to a rally on Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, with 51 military veterans ahead of this weeks House Oversight and Reform Committee hearing on a bill that would make D.C. the 51st state, on Monday, September 16, 2019. (Photo By
NEW YORK - The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives voted on Friday to make the District of Columbia the 51st state.
Lawmakers approved the bill, 232-180. One Democrat opposed the bill. No Republican supported it. The legislation will likely face insurmountable opposition in the GOP-controlled Senate.
On Thursday, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser joined congressional leadership in a press conference.
"We know that everyone all across the United States now knows and recognizes the plight of Washington, D.C.," Bowser said Thursday according to FOX News. "Not only do we not have voting senators and our congresswoman not have the right to vote, the whims of a federal government can encroach up our even limited autonomy."
The White House has already announced that the president would veto the bill should it actually make it to his desk.
D.C. statehood legislation hasn’t been voted on since 1993 but gained traction during the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that disbursed throughout the nation’s capital when President Trump attempted to use military personnel to quash the protests.
Bowser was outwardly opposed to the use of the National Guard in the District and condemned the president’s attitudes towards the demonstrations, an issue she alluded when she said the federal government can act "in ways that are a threat to all of the American states and all of the American people," in Thursday’s press conference.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said the issue of D.C. statehood has become a "civil rights issue."
On Thursday, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi pointed to the fact that D.C. residents pay taxes, serve in the military and serve as a part of the "economic vitality" of the U.S. without having representation, "How could it be? Whose idea was that?" she added.
According to a letter released by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Wednesday, it believes the Framers of the Constitution were concerned the District would have "outsized authority" in relation to other states with the majority of the federal offices located in the capital.
Hoyer acknowledged that the bill faces stiff opposition in the Republican-controlled Senate and called on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to take the measure seriously.
"I hope that Senator McConnell cares enough about our democracy to allow a vote on this bill in the United States Senate," Hoyer said. "Politics is not the issue. It’s democracy that’s the issue."
The Associated Press and FOX News contributed to this article.