The longstanding movement to make the District of Columbia America’s 51st state presses on, as the House passed a bill for statehood of the nation’s capital on Thursday.
The Washington, D.C. Admission Act, sponsored by D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton, would reduce the federal district to two-square-miles, including federal buildings like the Capitol and the White House. The remaining residential and commercial areas would become the State of Washington, Douglass Commonwealth, in honor of abolitionist Frederick Douglass. In becoming a state, D.C’s residents would have representatives who can vote in Congress, after decades of activists fighting for it.