Vote was entirely along party lines.
By a vote of 216-208, the House of Representatives voted for the second time in less than a year to make the District of Columbia the 51st state. It now moves to the Senate where it faces significant opposition. If approved, it will be the first new state to be admitted since 1959, the year Alaska and Hawaii joined the union.
Proponents argued statehood would fix the inequity of “more than 700,000 American citizens who pay federal taxes, who fight and die in wars, who serve on our juries, and yet have no vote in the Senate or the House of Representatives,” said Deputy Whip Jan Schakowsky of Illinois. “That is the definition of taxation without representation.”
The new state would be named “Washington, Douglas Commonwealth” after George Washington, America’s first president, and Frederick Douglass, a former enslaved person who became a famous abolitionist.
As the Lord Leads, Pray with Us…
- For members of the U.S. Senate as they consider the bill that would make the District of Columbia a state.
- For Senators to weigh the legality of voting for D.C. statehood against the possible need for an amendment under the Constitution.
- For wisdom for U.S. politicians considering statehood for Puerto Rico.
Sources: Reuters, The Hill
