Дом одобрил законопроект о превращении округа Колумбия в 51 штат

(WASHINGTON) — The Democratic-controlled Condominium accredited a bill Friday to create the District of Columbia the 51st impart, saying Congress has each and each the staunch duty and constitutional authority to be certain that that the metropolis’s 700,000 residents are allowed rotund vote casting rights, now not subject to “taxation with out representation.”

Lawmakers accredited the bill, 232-180, largely alongside occasion lines, marking the first time a chamber of Congress has passed a D.C. statehood bill. The legislation now goes to the Republican-controlled Senate, the save it faces insurmountable opposition from GOP leaders.

Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the district’s non-vote casting handbook in Congress, sponsored the bill, saying it has each and each the facts and Constitution on its aspect.

D.C.’s inhabitants is bigger than these of Wyoming and Vermont, and the mute impart would possibly well maybe well maybe be one of seven with populations below a million, she mentioned. The metropolis’s $15.5 billion annual price range is bigger than these of 12 states, and D.C.’s triple-A bond rating is elevated than these of 35 states, Norton mentioned.

Opponents, largely Republicans, known as the bill a strength receive for the firmly Democratic metropolis, and mentioned the nation’s founding fathers supposed the capital to be atomize free the opposite states.

“That is set strength. Invent no mistake about it,” mentioned Get. Chip Roy, R-Texas. The bill would “essentially alter what D.C is,” he added.

Norton, who has served as D.C. delegate since 1991, mentioned the pickle is deeply personal for her and hundreds of other metropolis residents who have long been disenfranchised. Her colossal-grandfather Richard Holmes escaped slavery at a Virginia plantation and “made it as a ways as D.C., a stroll to freedom but now not to equal citizenship,” she mentioned. ”For three generations my family has been denied the rights other Individuals take dangle of for granted.”

Congress has two choices, she added. “It would possibly well perchance well well proceed to yelp undemocratic, autocratic authority over the 705,000 Individuals, treating them, in the phrases of Frederick Douglass, as ‘aliens, now not citizens, but topics.’ Or Congress can dwell up to this nation’s promise and beliefs, discontinue taxation with out representation and accelerate” the statehood bill.

The bill would blueprint a brand mute impart of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, in honor of the Maryland-born Douglass. It also would decrease the scale of the federal district to a vacationer-pleasant field that functions the White Condominium, the Capitol, the Supreme Courtroom, federal monuments and the federal executive, legislative and judicial impart of business buildings adjacent to the Nationwide Mall and the Capitol.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., blasted the bill sooner than the Condominium vote. In a Senate speech, he disregarded Washington, D.C., as a metropolis with diminutive more to offer than lobbyists and federal workers.

“Yes, Wyoming is smaller than Washington by inhabitants, but it undoubtedly has three cases as many workers in mining, logging and construction, and 10 cases as many workers in manufacturing,” Cotton mentioned. “In other phrases, Wyoming is a smartly-rounded working-class impart.”

Cotton also criticized Democrats for prioritizing the D.C. statehood vote while there is “mob violence” in the streets. Current protests advance the White Condominium required “power by federal legislation enforcement officers below federal regulate,” he mentioned.

“Would you have confidence Mayor Bowser to abet Washington safe if she were given the powers of a governor? Would you have confidence Marion Barry?” Cotton added referring to D.C.’s recent and feeble mayors, each and each Dim.

Cotton’s remarks stirred outrage on social media, with many describing the remarks as racist. D.C. has a colossal African American inhabitants and used to be once incessantly known as “Chocolate Metropolis,” even supposing it is now not majority Dim.

Supporters mentioned the bill has turn into a ways more crucial in the aftermath of protests for racial justice in each and each Washington and across the nation. Democratic leaders scheduled the vote after the Trump administration’sgreat-criticized accelerateJune 1 to make employ of federal forces to determined Lafayette Sq. advance the White Condominium of amassed protesters so that President Donald Trump would possibly well maybe well maybe also trumpet his legislation and explain credentials in a portray op.

“There shouldn’t be troops from other states in Washington, D.C.,” mentioned Bowser. “There shouldn’t be federal forces advancing against Individuals, and there very positively shouldn’t be troopers stationed around our metropolis looking ahead to the accelerate to attack Individuals in a local policing matter.”

Trump mentioned final month that “D.C. will never be a impart” because it would possibly well well maybe seemingly indicate two more Democratic senators. “No, thank you. That’ll never happen,” he mentioned.

But Condominium Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., mentioned the rights of D.C. residents can must transcend political calculations.

“We are the good free nation on this planet, from all our be taught, that doesn’t have a vote casting member of their parliament of their nation. We name our parliament ‘Congress,’” Hoyer mentioned at a news conference Thursday.

Current events have focused national consideration on the metropolis’s pickle. Earlier this Twelve months, when Congress passed the CARES Act stimulus equipment, the capital used to be labeled as a territory in would love to a impart — a distinction that cost Washington bigger than $700 million in federal funding.

All District guidelines are subject to hunt down out about by a congressional committee, which can veto them or alter them by attaching riders to federal appropriations bills. All over GOP regulate of Congress, conservatives have sought, largely unsuccessfully, to prohibit among the metropolis’s liberal initiatives comparable to needle exchanges for drug customers and abortions below its Medicaid program.

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