The US House of Representatives voted on Thursday, April 22, to recognize Washington, DC as the 51st state, CBS News reported.
At the same time, the publication notes that such a measure could fail in the Senate. The law was passed on the party line, 216 people voted for it, while 208 people opposed it. At the same time, not a single Republican voted for the adoption of such a document.
According to CBS News, supporters of the bill support the decision, according to which the District of Columbia can become the 51st state of the United States, due to the fact that without it, residents of Washington are deprived of many rights. Including representation in the congress.
The population of the district is more than 700 thousand people, which is more than the population of the states of Wyoming or Vermont. However, these two states each have two senators and a representative in the US House of Representatives, while Eleanor Holmes Norton represents the District of Columbia in Congress as a non-voting delegate.
At the same time, according to the IRS 2019, residents of the District of Columbia pay more federal taxes than 21 states. However, the county has the same responsibilities as all U.S. territorial units.
CBS News clarifies that the law, dubbed HR 51, was to create the state of Washington as the Commonwealth of Douglas, named after American writer Frederick Douglas. This, in turn, will allow county residents to take advantage of all the opportunities that the rest of the states have.
In 2020, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a state measure for the District of Columbia. Then 232 people voted for the project against 180 citizens of the country. However, this measure was not continued in the Senate, which was then controlled by the Republicans. At the moment, despite the number of Democrats in the Senate, the issue of recognizing the District of Columbia as a state remains difficult, as this circumstance may affect the course of further elections in the United States.
Having become the 51st state, Washington will definitely change the balance of power in the American Congress, Gazeta.ru wrote.
On October 1, 2020, former US President Donald Trump announced that if the Democratic candidate wins the presidential election on November 3 of the same year, the party intends to increase the number of states in order to strengthen its positions in the Senate and House of Representatives. Thus, the American leader answered the question of whether the Democrats can achieve state status for the District of Columbia, Guam and Puerto Rico.
However, the District of Columbia has not yet become a state.