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Graphic shows main points of the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, H.R. 51.
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POLITIEK

Stemming over staat Washington D.C.

By Duncan Mil

June 26, 2020 - The Washington DC Admission Act would make the United States’ capital the 51st state, granting voting rights in the House of Representatives and Senate to its more than 705,700 residents.

The Democrat-controlled House vote on bill -- HR 51 -- is merely symbolic since the law would face insurmountable opposition in the Republican-controlled Senate. President Trump has vowed to veto any District of Columbia statehood legislation, saying that letting DC become a state and enlarge Congress with two more senators -- new seats guaranteed to be Democratic -- was “very, very stupid.”

America’s Founding Fathers wrote into the Constitution that the national capital would be an enclave under the exclusive authority of Congress -- a neutral “district” in which representatives of all the states could meet on an equal footing.

Members of Congress have filed DC statehood bills before, most recently legislation by non-voting DC delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton in 1993, also, numbered HR 51. Entitled the “New Columbia Admission Act,” it failed with a House vote of 153-277.

Norton’s latest bill carves out specific space for a capital district of government buildings surrounding the national mall and White House under federal government control.

DC Mayor Muriel Bowser would take the title of “governor,” and the district council would function as the legislative body.

The 51st state to the US would change “District of Columbia” to “Douglass Commonwealth,” maintaining the “DC” abbreviation while paying homage to African-American Frederick Douglass. After escaping from slavery in Maryland in 1838, Douglass became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York.

Mayor Bowser had complained that Congress classified DC as a territory rather than a state in the CARES Act stimulus package -- a distinction that cost Washington more than $700 million in federal coronavirus relief funding.

Sources
PUBLISHED: 26/06/2020; STORY: Graphic News; PICTURES: Associated Press
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