Bill Text: VA HR271 | 2023 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: District of Columbia; memorializing Congress to enact legislation admitting as a state into the U.S.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 7-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2023-02-07 - Left in Rules [HR271 Detail]
Download: Virginia-2023-HR271-Introduced.html
WHEREAS, the people living on the land that would eventually be designated as the District of Columbia were provided the right to vote for representation in Congress when the United States Constitution was ratified in 1788; and
WHEREAS, the passage of the Organic Act of 1801 placed the District of Columbia under the exclusive authority of the United States Congress and abolished residents' right to vote for members of the United States Congress and for the president and vice president of the United States; and
WHEREAS, residents of the District of Columbia were granted the right to vote for the president and vice president through passage of the Twenty-Third Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1961; and
WHEREAS, as of 2021, United States Census Bureau data estimates that the District of Columbia's population is approximately 689,545 residents, which is comparable to the populations of Wyoming (576,851), Vermont (643,077), Alaska (733,391), and North Dakota (779,094); and
WHEREAS, residents of the District of Columbia share all the responsibilities of United States citizenship, including paying more federal taxes than residents of 22 states, service on federal juries, and defending the United States as members of the United States Armed Forces in every war since the War for Independence, yet they are denied full representation in Congress; and
WHEREAS, the residents of the District of Columbia themselves have endorsed statehood for the District of Columbia and passed a district-wide referendum on November 8, 2016, which favored statehood by 86 percent; and
WHEREAS, no other democratic nation denies the right of self-government, including participation in its national legislature, to the residents of its capital; and
WHEREAS, the residents of the District of Columbia lack full democracy, equality, and citizenship enjoyed by the residents of the 50 states; and
WHEREAS, the United States Congress has repeatedly interfered with the District of Columbia's limited self-government by enacting laws that affect the District of Columbia's expenditure of its locally raised tax revenue, including barring the usage of locally raised revenue, thus violating the fundamental principle that states and local governments are best suited to enact legislation that represents the will of their citizens; and
WHEREAS, although the District of Columbia has passed consecutive balanced budgets since fiscal year 1997, it still faces the possibility of being shut down yearly because of congressional deliberations over the federal budget; and
WHEREAS, Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia's delegate to the United States House of Representatives, and Tom Carper, a United States senator from Delaware, introduced in the 117th Congress the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, which provides that the State of Washington, D.C., would have all the rights of citizenship as taxpaying American citizens, including two senators in the United States Senate and at least one member in the House of Representatives; and
WHEREAS, the United Nations Human Rights Committee has called on the United States Congress to address the District of Columbia's lack of political equality, and the Organization of American States has declared the disenfranchisement of residents of the District of Columbia a violation of its charter agreement, to which the United States is a signatory; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED by the House of Delegates, That the Congress of the United States be urged to enact legislation admitting the District of Columbia as a state into the United States of America; and, be it
RESOLVED FURTHER, That the Clerk of the House of Delegates transmit copies of this resolution to the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, the President of the United States Senate, and the members of the Virginia Congressional Delegation so that they may be apprised of the sense of the Virginia House of Delegates in this matter.
