By: CBS News
The House will vote Thursday on a bill to admit Washington, D.C., as the 51st state, although the measure is likely to fail in the evenly divided Senate.
For the bill s advocates, D.C. statehood is a civil rights issue. The district has a population of more than 700,000 people, larger than the population of Wyoming or Vermont. But while those two states each have two senators and a representative in the House, D.C. has no voting representation in Congress. Eleanor Holmes Norton represents D.C. in Congress as a non-voting delegate.
Statehood advocates also point out that D.C. pays more in federal taxes than 21 states and more per capita than any state, according to 2019 IRS data. The district is also diverse, with a population that is 46% Black and majority nonwhite. If admitted, it would be the first state with a plurality Black population.
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USA TODAY
WASHINGTON – The Democratic-led House of Representatives again passed legislation Thursday that would make Washington, D.C., the 51st state – something residents and leaders in the nation s capital have been requesting for decades.
The bill passed 216-208.
But the Washington, D.C. Admission Act faces slim chances of advancing in the split Senate, where it would need Republican support to overcome a legislative hurdle known as the filibuster. Without at least 10 Senate Republican votes joining all 50 Democrats and independents, the legislation will not make it to President Joe Biden’s desk
The bill, introduced by Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., passed the House in the last Congress, though it was not given a vote in the then-Republican-majority Senate. The 2020 passage in the House marked the first time a D.C. statehood bill passed in either chamber of Congress.