The Republican-led Senate is about to crush the House Democrats’ latest scheme.
The Washington Examiner reports that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Senate Republicans will not vote on a recent bill pushed through the House by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and the Democrats that would make Washington D.C. a state.
The ostensible argument
There is nothing new about trying to make D.C. the 51st state.
The argument has been made repeatedly over the years that residents in D.C. get taxed, and so, they ought to have representation in Congress. Currently, they do not, only having a non-voting delegate in the House and a shadow senator.
Recently, Pelosi and the Democrats, taking advantage of the ongoing civil unrest following the death of George Floyd, have made another push to get D.C. statehood.
“The fact is, people in the District of Columbia pay taxes, fight our wars, risk their lives for our democracy, and yet, they have no vote in the House or the Senate about whether we go to war and how those taxes are exacted,” Pelosi argued.
Shortly afterward, Pelosi and her Democratic majority pushed a bill through the House, 232 to 180. If that bill were to go on to become law, D.C. would indeed become the 51st state and would be renamed “State of Washington Douglass Commonwealth.”
The truth
Senate Republicans are poised, however, to put an end to the bill. In fact, they’re not even going to consider it.
Why? Because they know what the House Democrats are really up to — namely trying to get two more Democratic senators and one more Democratic representative in Congress.
“My friends on the other side of the aisle may protest and outrage at the suggestion that what this is all about is an attempt to get two more Democratic senators,” said Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA). “But that’s what this is really all about.”
Even if there wasn’t this questionable motive lurking in the background and the Senate was to go along and confirm the House bill, however, Republicans argue that it is not so easy to make D.C. a state. For that to happen, they believe that a constitutional amendment would be needed.
Either way, it looks like it’s going to be another crushing defeat for Pelosi and the Democrats.
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