The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote next Thursday on a bill that would make Washington, D.C., the 51st U.S. state.
The House Oversight and Reform Committee passed H.R. 51, also known as the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, last Wednesday in a 25-19 party-line vote.
The legislation has 215 co-sponsors and is likely to pass the House with all Republicans voting against it. D.C. does not have full representation on Capitol Hill and Congress can also vote to overrule laws passed by the D.C. Council.
D.C. residents overwhelmingly voted for statehood in 2016.
"As American citizens, D.C. residents are entitled to equal citizenship, but they have also earned it,'' D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat and the bill’s sponsor, said Wednesday. ''They have fought in every American war, including the war that led to the creation of the nation, the Revolutionary War. D.C. servicemembers have helped get voting rights for people throughout the world yet have always been denied those same rights when they returned home.''
Ranking member James Comer, R-Ky., during the hearing on the bill referred to it as an unconstitutional power grab by liberals in a bid to create a ''socialist utopia.''
"If my Democrat colleagues want D.C. to become a state, the cleanest and fastest way for that to happen, is to repeal the 23rd Amendment before consideration of this bill," he said. "But that’s not good enough for the progressives. That’s not good enough for The Squad. That’s not good enough for the liberal left. This bill is part of their no-holds-barred plan to reshape the American landscape to one of higher taxes and daily government intrusion into the lives of Americans.''
Former President Donald Trump said statehood will never happen ''unless we have some very, very stupid Republicans'' because it means ''two automatic Democrat'' seats in the Senate.