House of Representatives passes Washington D.C. statehood bill On Thursday, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives voted for the second time in less than a year to admit the District of Columbia—the seat of the federal government—as the 51st state in the United States. House Resolution 51 passed on a party-line vote of 216-208, with every Republican opposed. The bill will now go to the Senate, where Democrats hold narrowest of majorities, thanks to the tie-breaking vote of Vice President Kamala Harris. The District of Columbia, renamed the state of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, with a population of 700,000, would become the geographically smallest state in the United States, one-eighteenth the size of Rhode Island, although it would have a larger population than the states of Wyoming and Vermont.