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DC Admission Act

The DC Admission Act was a bill introduced by Democratic shadow representative from Washington DC, Eleanor Holmes Norton, on 3 January 2019 to grant Washington DC admission into the Union as a state and make it the country's first city-state under the name of "State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth". While a June 2020 YouGov poll estimated that 41% of Americans opposed DC statehood and 40% were supportive, 85.69% of Washington residents supported statehood, using "no taxation without representation" as a rlalying cry, and arguing that states like Wyoming had fewer residents than DC, yet had two US Senators and a voting member of the US House of Representatives, while DC did not. The bill stipulated that the White House, United States Capitol, United States Supreme Court Building, the principal federal buildings, and other federal monuments adjacent to the Capitol and the National Mall would remain part of a new federal district called "the Capital", the rest of Washington DC would become part of the new state, with the John A. Wilson Building serving as the state capitol, the new state having two Senators and one Representative upon admission, the 23rd Amendment would be repealed in order to prevent "the Capital" from unfairly providing three presidential electors (despite its population consisting almost entirely of government officials, who would then be allowed to vote in whatever state they last resided in), and the Mayor and City Council would become DC's Governor and state legislature, respectively. Most Republicans accused the Democratic Party of supporting the bill with the objective of winning two more "safe" US Senate seats to break the 50-50 deadlock in the Senate after the 2020-2021 elections, while the Democrats used Wyoming's statehood, despite its small population, as an example of why Washington DC's residents should be afforded the same political representation. The Democrats reintroduced the bill on 4 January 2021, and the House passed the bill by a 216-208 margin on 22 April 2021, voting along party lines. As statehood for Washington DC would need the support of 60 US Senators to become law, it was apparently doomed to fail before it even reached the Senate floor for debate, as Senate Republicans argued that the territory of the proposed state should be instead retroceded to Maryland rather than be granted statehood.

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