‘Long overdue’: Biden officially backs D.C. statehood bill ahead of expected House vote this week
President Biden on Tuesday officially threw his support behind a bill to make Washington, D.C., the nation’s 51st state ahead of an expected House vote on the measure this week.
In a statement released by the White House Office of Management and Budget, Biden’s administration said the so-called Washington, D.C. Admission Act is “long overdue.”
“For far too long, the more than 700,000 people of Washington, D.C., have been deprived of full representation in the U.S. Congress,” the statement said. “This taxation without representation and denial of self-governance is an affront to the democratic values on which our nation was founded.”
Biden’s support was expected, but the announcement gives Democrats on Capitol Hill confidence that the president will promptly sign the bill if they get it to his desk.
Because D.C. is a district and not a state, residents barely have any congressional representation.
In the House, D.C. has one delegate, who can only vote on procedural motions and committee business without ever getting a say on floor legislation. In the Senate, D.C. has no representation.
The Biden administration said admitting D.C. as a state will “make our union stronger and more just.”
“The administration calls for the Congress to provide for a swift and orderly transition to statehood for the people of Washington, D.C.,” the statement said.
House Democrats already passed a bill to make D.C. a state last year, but it went nowhere in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Democrats, who are expected to unanimously back the bill when it comes up for a vote again in the House on Wednesday or Thursday, hope the legislation will fare better in the Senate this time around with Democrats now in control of the upper chamber.
Still, the Senate’s 50 Democrats will face a tough battle, as most legislation in the upper chamber requires 60 votes.
Republicans have long opposed the push for D.C. statehood, claiming the founders always intended for the district to only be a seat of government.
But statehood proponents say Republicans only oppose the bill because D.C. is overwhelmingly blue — meaning each chamber of Congress would likely get more Democratic seats if the bill is adopted.
At a press conference on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mae, a first-term Republican, offered a quizzical argument against statehood.
“D.C. wouldn’t even qualify as a singular congressional district, and here they are — they want the power and the authority of being an entire state in the United States and they want that power,” said Mace, standing alongside Rep. Liz Cheney, a Wyoming Republican whose state population is smaller than that of D.C.
