Delaware Democrat introducing DC statehood bill in Senate 

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) on Monday introduced he’s reintroducing a invoice to grant statehood to the nation’s capital. 

“The rumors are true! I’m introducing the #DCStatehood invoice within the Senate this week,” Carper wrote on Twitter. 

Carper has led earlier efforts to get the invoice by means of within the Senate in partnership with the District of Columbia’s nonvoting delegate to the U.S. Home, Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), whose identify on Twitter is Eleanor “#DCStatehood” Holmes Norton.  

Norton and advocates have lengthy been pushing for statehood for Washington, D.C., and Norton has stated the measure is “an important invoice I introduce every Congress.” 

The invoice handed the Home for the primary time in 2020 and once more in 2021 however hasn’t made it by means of the Senate to get to the president’s desk. Norton introduced the invoice ahead within the decrease chamber once more simply days after the 118th Congress convened earlier this month.  

“Congress has an ethical obligation and the constitutional authority to go this invoice.  This nation was based on the ideas of no taxation with out illustration and consent of the ruled, however D.C. residents are taxed with out illustration and can’t consent to the legal guidelines beneath which they, as Americans, should dwell,” Norton stated when she launched the invoice.

Nonetheless, the invoice might have even bleaker prospects this yr. The GOP controls the Home majority, and no Republican voted for the statehood invoice in 2020 or 2021. Within the Senate, Democrats would want not less than 9 Republican votes to interrupt a filibuster.

The district is residence to round 700,000 residents, a inhabitants greater than the states of Wyoming and Vermont. Professional-statehood advocates really feel the inhabitants ought to have a voting voice in Congress, whereas the proposal’s largely Republican opponents really feel the D.C. statehood push is a play for extra Democratic management.

Carper and Norton are set to carry a press convention on the invoice Tuesday, with Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) additionally set to make remarks.