Quote:Democrats have been pushing for years to have the District of Columbia officially recognized as the 51st state in America.

And on Thursday, they made that happen in a highly partisan vote.

The Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives voted 216-208 on Thursday to pass a bill that would grant statehood to Washington, D.C.

H.R. 51, otherwise known as the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, would give the district two senators and a voting representative in the House.

The new state would be called “Washington, Douglas Commonwealth” in honor of abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
It would exclude federal buildings and monuments, and federal territory would be known as the Capital.

Under the plan, the 51st state would be called “Washington, Douglass Commonwealth,” named for Frederick Douglass.

The state would consist of 66 of the 68 square miles of the present-day federal district.

Washington, D.C is as a reliably Democrat as California, Washington State, New York City, and other big cities.

Making the nation’s capital a state would give the Democrats two more Senate seats and one more representative in the House.

It is about giving the Democrats more power, no matter what they say to make it sound like a good idea.

Here’s the good news: it’s highly unlikely the bill will ever pass in the Senate.

The U.S. Senate is split 50-50.

With the legislative filibuster still in place, the statehood bill would require 60 votes in the Senate to advance.

Democrats would need to vote with a simple majority — all 50 Senate Democrats plus Kamala Harris breaking the tie as the vice president — to end the filibuster.

However, two Democrats — Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — are already on record recently saying they will not support ending the filibuster.

An editorial from the Washington Times published in 2019 details why making D.C. the 51st state would be a bad idea.

In like fashion, for more than 40 years now, Democrats in the District of Columbia and in Congress have been pressing to turn a 68.3-square-mile city into the nation’s 51st state. (Rhode Island — currently the country’s smallest state — comprises 1,212 square miles, more than 17 times the size of D.C.)

But the left has played the race card so often — and so indiscriminately, as in this case — that it no longer automatically bludgeons the opposition into submission. Republicans correctly see the D.C. statehood ploy as the Democratic political power grab that it is, so it was disappointing that they would resort to silly arguments, such as how it would affect parking on Capitol Hill, as reasons to oppose it. H.R. 51 currently has the backing of 220 members of the House — all Democrats — including Eleanor Holmes Norton and two other nonvoting delegates.

It’s nothing more than Democrats looking for a new way to grab more power to help them get more far-left policies and legislation passed in Congress.

Link

Fun fact: they have to have a federal district so not only would this new state gets EV votes the left behind district would as well thanks to the DC Election amendment

Still don't understand a non political reason why they cannot just be rolled into Maryland

(04-22-2021 12:46 PM)solohawks Wrote:  Still don't understand a non political reason why they cannot just be rolled into Maryland

Well, Maryland already has to put up with Baltimore, so I can see why they don't want to multiply their crime rate again with adding DC.

(04-22-2021 12:48 PM)49RFootballNow Wrote:  

(04-22-2021 12:46 PM)solohawks Wrote:  Still don't understand a non political reason why they cannot just be rolled into Maryland

Well, Maryland already has to put up with Baltimore, so I can see why they don't want to multiply their crime rate again with adding DC.

That's a political reason

I can't wait for NYC, Chicago, Houston and LA to start their statehood efforts.

Doesn't a new state have to be ratified by the existing states?

(04-22-2021 01:01 PM)geosnooker2000 Wrote:  Doesn't a new state have to be ratified by the existing states?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Admission_to_the_Union

Sweet! Let's make PR next!

PS: Can we combine a few of those mountain states into one? Do we really need 2 Dakotas?

#muhFilibuster

Taking all politics out of it, cities don't deserve statehood. I wouldn't support the most conservative city getting statehood even if it did mean 2 more sane senators. There are also 20 something cities in this country with a better claim to statehood than DC, but most of those would turn the states they left from blue to red by doing so, making it a wash, so you won't see the Demos salivating over them like this.

Politics, that's all this is, it's all it ever was.

This is all that's saving us: If Manchin & Sinema flip, it's over. But we're probably safe another election or 2 more & that's it.

"Here’s the good news: it’s highly unlikely the bill will ever pass in the Senate.

The U.S. Senate is split 50-50.

With the legislative filibuster still in place, the statehood bill would require 60 votes in the Senate to advance.

Democrats would need to vote with a simple majority — all 50 Senate Democrats plus Kamala Harris breaking the tie as the vice president — to end the filibuster.

However, two Democrats — Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona — are already on record recently saying they will not support ending the filibuster."

Let’s create the state of Panhandle. We can break up Florida and have two Republican states. We can create the State of Guantanamo Bay. We can divide Georgia up; Atlanta would become the state called Black Planet and the rest of Georgia would be called Rebel. Northern California could break off from California. Denver and Boulder could become the State of Progressives Douchebag the rest of Colorado would be safely Republican.

There I just made 7 new Republican states.

Stacey Abrams
@staceyabrams

Democracy cannot be fully realized while 702,000 Americans are denied representation. I am proud to support #DCStatehood and commend the House for passing #HR51 today. Now the Senate must move to finally grant full representation in Congress to the people of our nation’s capital.

I saw this today in the Wall Street Journal. If they are serious about "representation" here is the perfect solution.

Quote:Fashioning an independent seat of government in a federal system while affording representation to its residents is a dilemma dating to the founding. The Framers provided in the Constitution’s Article I that Congress could, “by cession of particular states,” control a small area in which the federal government would operate. In 1790 part of the territories of Virginia and Maryland, two of the 13 states that ratified the Constitution, were delineated for federal control.

Advocates of statehood brush aside the constitutional concerns and frame their cause as a simple question of democracy. It’s true that the roughly 700,000 residents of the District don’t have the ability to elect voting Members of Congress. Many hold influence over the federal government as employees and contractors or in other positions, and in the Founding era proximity to the seat of power was itself considered a form of representation.

Yet the natural remedy for the imperfect status quo, if representation is the real concern, would be for Congress to do something it has done before—return part of the District to the state that ceded it in the first place. That’s what happened in 1846 when Congress reinstated Virginia’s control over the D.C. suburbs of Arlington and Alexandria.

The D.C. Statehood Gambit

Democracy is at stake. 700k people of color along with buttloads of Progressive LGBQT types are being denied the opportunity to refer to Washington DC as the state of Washington Douglass.

We need to march, burn some shiite down, and beat some Honkie ass!!!

We are ******* screwed & they are power-obsesed.

(04-22-2021 01:38 PM)JerryJeff Wrote:  I saw this today in the Wall Street Journal. If they are serious about "representation" here is the perfect solution.

Quote:Fashioning an independent seat of government in a federal system while affording representation to its residents is a dilemma dating to the founding. The Framers provided in the Constitution’s Article I that Congress could, “by cession of particular states,” control a small area in which the federal government would operate. In 1790 part of the territories of Virginia and Maryland, two of the 13 states that ratified the Constitution, were delineated for federal control.

Advocates of statehood brush aside the constitutional concerns and frame their cause as a simple question of democracy. It’s true that the roughly 700,000 residents of the District don’t have the ability to elect voting Members of Congress. Many hold influence over the federal government as employees and contractors or in other positions, and in the Founding era proximity to the seat of power was itself considered a form of representation.

Yet the natural remedy for the imperfect status quo, if representation is the real concern, would be for Congress to do something it has done before—return part of the District to the state that ceded it in the first place. That’s what happened in 1846 when Congress reinstated Virginia’s control over the D.C. suburbs of Arlington and Alexandria.

The D.C. Statehood Gambit

Hey man. Don’t come here and post reasonable solutions. What is wrong with you!!!!!

The existing states can file suit and challenge this.

If anything, the Democrats did a poor job representing their constituents by downplaying this was an objective of their's. Everytime the media dare bring it up.

We're what, 2-3 months into their term?