House approves DC statehood bill, GOP calls move Dem ‘power grab’

The House of Representatives on Friday voted to make Washington D.C. the 51st state, a move cheered by Washingtonians and Democrats as a long-overdue acknowledgment of full citizenship, while Republicans panned the effort as a Democratic Party power grab.

The vote was 232-180. The vote fell largely along party-lines: Rep. Collin Peterson, D-Minn., one of the most conservative Democrats in the House, was the lone Democrat to oppose the bill.

The bill is presumed dead on arrival in the GOP-led Senate and is also opposed by President Trump, who would likely wield his veto pen if the bill ever got to his desk.

Champions of the legislation — mostly Democrats — said statehood is about affording the residents of DC equal citizenship and ending the injustice of paying taxes, serving in the military and contributing to the economic power of the United States while being disenfranchised.

“This bill allows our country to live up to its claim to be a democracy,” said Washington Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democratic non-voting member of the U.S. House. “We stand out as the only democracy, which denies democracy to the residents of its own capital city.”

Bamsterman

Article URL : https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-approves-dc-at-51st-state-gop-calls-move-dem-power-grab