Washington, D.C. Admission Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I am going to leave my mask on, not only because it is the safe thing to do for all of you--not for me, for you--but also because it represents the best of America.

I am from Maryland. Maryland was a slaveholding State. I represent the district that probably had the most slaves, along with my friend from the First Congressional District.

In fact, there were many sympathizers for the Southern cause that would have had Marylanders join the Confederacy. They were, of course, wrong. But I want to tell my friends from those States that withdrew and whose States tried to destroy the Union that they ought to remember that this Nation took them back without condition with full citizenship and the right to vote. Surely we can do the same for our fellow citizens.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this bill, and I thank Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton in her extraordinary quest keeping her eye on the prize to make sure that the citizens she represents have full citizenship and have our respect. I am proud to stand with her in supporting statehood for the people of the District of Columbia.

On this mask, there is a drawing of the outline of the District of Columbia. That is Maryland before the 1789 and subsequent actions. That was Maryland. I daresay, there is not a Marylander who voted on that secession of that land for the Capital of the United States who thought to themselves they were disenfranchising those who lived in that District.

I want to thank Mayor Bowser, with whom I have been proud to work to move this issue forward with the leadership of Delegate Holmes Norton. I made clear when we announced that the House would consider this bill today that the people who call our Nation's Capital home have been disenfranchised and shortchanged too long.

Martin Luther King said: How long?

Too long.

Not only have the residents of one of America's most historically African-American cities--let me repeat that--historically, it is one of our largest African-American cities. It is not exclusive. It is a diverse city. Very frankly, it does not make a decision, if you don't vote for us, we will not allow you to vote.

Hear me: If you don't vote for us, we will not allow you to vote.

But President Trump says that my friends on the other side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker, would be foolish to vote for this bill. Why? Because we are too Democratic and we wouldn't vote for you.

What do you think the North would have done with the 11 States that tried to destroy the Union if we had said: You are not going to vote for us, so you can't come back--at least, you can't come back with voting rights, and we will keep you as subjects, not as citizens?

I hope every Member who represents one of those States thinks about that proposition as you vote to exclude 706,000 of your fellow citizens from full participation in our democracy.

Not only have the residents of one of America's great cities been prevented from having full citizenship, but they have also been shortchanged in the money that we give them. Just recently, COVID-19, we gave them 40 percent of what we gave Wyoming, an entity 200,000 people smaller than the District of Columbia.

I see no heads shaking on the other side of the aisle, Mr. Speaker. I see no agreement on that.

Should we say Wyoming is too small and that we ought to exclude Wyoming, it is not big enough to be a State?

Yet Wyoming, more than 10 times smaller than the State of Maryland and, as opposed to 40 million people in California, 500,000, one- eightieth of the size, have two United States Senators.

Stand up if you think Wyoming ought not to have a vote.

I see no one standing.

This constitutional argument is a Don Quixote windmill argument. These are 706,000 American citizens. At the same time, their elected leaders can be overruled by Congress and by the President when it comes to local issues, as we saw when President Trump ordered Federal law enforcement and the National Guard to suppress peaceful and legitimate protest against the killing of Black men and women in encounters with the police and with others. George Zimmerman comes to mind and Trayvon Martin.

This is about human rights. This is about democracy. This is about our Nation being better than that.

I see my colleague from Maryland shaking his head. We disagree.

The people of D.C. deserve not only real self-government, but also full representation in the Congress of the United States.

Are these 700,000 people less than the 500,000 people in Wyoming?

If we ask somebody to come to the District of Columbia and work for our government, is the condition that they lose their citizenship, that they lose their full voting rights? Is that the condition we put on them? If so, I respectfully disagree with my colleagues who believe that is what America is about.

That is what this historic legislation would do, admit Washington, D.C., as the 51st State. That would provide residents of the District of Columbia with a voting House Member and two Senators, as every other group of Americans who lives in a jurisdiction called a State has the right to have.

It would right a historical wrong to ensure that our Founders' vision of representative government will be enacted for all Americans, no longer excluding the 706,000 in the District of Columbia.

The House will take action today to make the District of Columbia a State. It is an historic day.

Be on the right side of history. So many voted against the Civil Rights Act of the 1960s and years thereafter. They were on the wrong side of history.

The gentleman is absolutely right. Somebody mentioned it was Democrats. We were a segregationist party. And guess what? We said we do not want to be that kind of party, and Hubert Humphrey got up in 1948 in New York at a Democratic convention and said that we need to come out of the dark shadows of slavery and segregation into the bright sunlight of justice and equality.

Yes, I understand that was our party. We said to them: We do not want to be that party.

Don't you be that party. Don't you have Lincoln turn over in his grave and say: That is not our party.

Yes, I heard the gentleman over there. Sadly, in the denial of democracy, the Republican-led Senate has indicated, Mr. Speaker, it will not act, just as it has not acted on 275 bipartisan bills that we have sent to the United States Senate. They will not act.

The majority of the Senate is elected by 18 percent of the American people. That is unfortunate, Mr. Speaker, because this is more than just a local issue for the District of Columbia. It is a civil rights issue for our country, as yesterday was a civil rights issue for our country.

It is something that ought to concern all Americans, because when some Americans are denied the full rights and representation of citizenship, it diminishes the meaning of citizenship for all. Statehood is not merely a status; it is a recognition by the rest of the States of the sovereign equality of the people who live there that they are part of the main, not simply an island, as the poet reflected, and that they cannot be treated as lesser by their fellow citizens.

By admitting Washington, D.C., as a State, we will admit what we already know to be true: that its people are our fellow Americans, equal in their pursuit of happiness and their enjoyment of the full rights and privileges of American citizenship, including representation in the Congress of the United States.

Our patriot forebears in the 18th century used to cry out, ``No taxation without representation.''

The citizens of Boston stole some tea, a criminal act, and they threw it into the Boston Harbor. Why? They said: Because we will not be taxed without representation and that King George cannot tell us what to do without consulting us.

Be on the right side of history. Washington residents correctly still use that battle cry in the 21st century. Let us make it ring true at last. Let us make our Union of States a more perfect one by adding to its number as we have 37 times consistent with the Constitution.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to stand up for America, stand up for democracy, and stand up for the premise of America that every person counts. Vote ``yes.''

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Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?

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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman very much for his respect.

Is the gentleman aware that the District of Columbia was reduced in size historically a while back so that the land was reduced?

This is what is happening here. There is clear precedent for doing this.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

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