Don't show me this message again✕ The Stars and Stripes hangs over Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington DC – with an extra star symbolising the ambition of making the District of Columbia the 51st state of the USA (AFP via Getty Images) To many, the question of whether the nation’s capital should be a state was asked, answered and enshrined in the Constitution more than 200 years ago. Regardless, the debate will rage for as long as it is unlikely that a president signs into law the 51st star amid America’s red and white stripes. The White House has formally supported legislation that would establish Washington DC as the “Douglas Commonwealth”, the nation’s first new state since Alaska and Hawaii joined the union in 1959.