-Often, people think about DC as the Capitol
or the Mall or monuments,
but they don't think about the over 700,000 residents
who have no representation in Congress
and who are essentially locked out of the democracy
that surrounds them every day.
-Pro-statehood Democrats have long called
the lack of representation
an injustice to District residents.
Meanwhile, Republicans have labeled statehood
as a power grab by Democrats
looking to change the electoral map.
-The United States is the only country
which does not give the same rights
to the people who live in its capital as everyone else has.
-Eleanor Holmes Norton has represented DC
in the House of Representatives
since 1991, as a nonvoting delegate.
She has proposed statehood bills multiple times,
but none of them passed, until 2019.
-The District of Columbia statehood bill,
HR 51, is passed without objection.
Motion to reconsider is laid upon the table.
-It went nowhere in the Republican-controlled Senate.
She reintroduced the legislation
at the opening of the 117th Congress.
This time, she has 212 cosponsors
and commitment from House leadership
that the bill would receive a floor vote.
Democrat Senator Tom Carper of Delaware
also introduced the companion statehood bill.
-We should all be concerned that, today,
more than 700,000 taxpaying Americans,
over two-thirds of whom are people of color,
continue to be denied a vote here in this body.
-To better understand why DC isn't a state,
let's go back to 1787.
While writing the Constitution,
the founding fathers decided that it was imperative
that the seat of government was not in a state.
Their goal was to keep any state
from having outsized influence over the federal government
and to keep the nation's capital as a neutral enclave.
So they wrote Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution,
that Congress can "exercise exclusive Legislation"
in a federal district,
as long as it does not exceed "ten Miles square,"
or, in layman's terms, 100 miles.
-They essentially decide that,
through what would later be called the Residence Act,
that the capital would be somewhere
along the Potomac River,
between the confluence with the eastern branch
and a creek about 50 or so miles north of here, in Maryland.
So people in Washington City,
which was the largest settlement within the District of Columbia,
not only lost their right to vote for president
and for members of Congress,
they didn't have any government at all.
Congress effectively operated as their city council.
For the next 220 years, in various ways,
DC residents lobby for home rule.
Because they do lose it, after 1874,
for an entire 100 years.
But also, representation in Congress.
-In 1963, Congress ratified the Twenty-third Amendment,
giving DC residents the right to vote in presidential elections.
Eight years later,
a nonvoting delegate position in the House was reinstated.
And, finally, in 1973, the passage of the Home Rule Act
allowed residents to elect their own mayor and city council.
However, all legislation, including the city's budget,
require congressional approval.
This all remains true today.
It's why "Taxation without representation"
became the official slogan on DC license plates.
-The best way to see the injustice of paying taxes
without representation is to compare DC residents
and what they pay with other Americans.
-Despite having no say over how those tax dollars are spent,
DC residents actually pay the highest per capita
federal income taxes in the US.
-The concept of "one person and one vote" is not existent here.
We are the last location within the country
that pays for taxes that is denied our representation.
Until everyone is represented, no one equally is.
-While Democrats control both chambers of Congress,
the margin in the Senate couldn't be narrower.
Vice President Harris is needed to break every tie on votes
requiring a simple majority and statehood
requires way more votes than that: sixty, to be exact.
That means advocates need to convince Republicans
and moderate Democrats to vote yes.
-Statehood for Washington, DC?
-I don't know nothing about that, yet.
I want to see the pros and cons,
so I'm waiting to see all the facts.
I'm opening up to see everything.
-I will never vote to give a single, middling-size
city the same political power
as one of America's great fifty states.
-This is a continuation of the efforts by the Democrats
to alter the way America operates.
-Calls for statehood grew stronger
after the security failures
during the Capitol riot in January.
The DC Police Department said it sent approximately 850 officers,
nearly one-quarter of its force, to defend the halls of Congress.
-I'm upset that 706,000 of the District of Columbia
did not have a single vote in that Congress yesterday,
despite the fact that our people were putting their lives
on the line to protect our democracy.
-Others noted that the National Guard
could've responded more quickly,
if DC had a governor with the power to call them in.
-I think recent events have highlighted
why DC statehood is important.
I think that it has shown why residents of Washington
have been fighting for this issue for quite some time,
but make no mistake about it:
Whether it's January 6 or the past 200 years,
the people of Washington,
DC are faced with lack of statehood every single day.
Democrats now have control of the White House,
the Senate, and the House.
It is no longer a decision of whether or not
they can give representation to the residents of Washington.
It's whether or not they choose to do.
And so we hope that, right now,
this sort of culture of equality and justice
will seep into the city of Washington,
DC and finally end this stain on our democracy.