The Washington, D.C., Admissions Act, HR-51 (SB-51 in the Senate), comes up for a hearing on March 22 in the House Oversight Committee. Introduced by nonvoting D.C. delegate-at-large, Eleanor Holmes Norton, HR-51 has 227 co-sponsors in the House. It would create the Douglass Commonwealth — named for famed abolitionist and D.C. resident Frederick Douglas — and carve out a federal enclave that includes Capitol Hill and the area around the White House.
If there was any doubt that the District of Columbia needs statehood, the events of Jan. 6 cleared it up. Mayor Muriel Bowser was unable to activate the D.C.National Guard without the president’s consent (a powerdelegated to the Secretary of the Army). The lines of authority to seek mutual aid for the District from neighboring states under the 50-state Emergency Management Assistance Compact are hopelessly tangled, an issue now under investigation through Senate hearings. No governor faces this obstacle. While outnumbered Capitol Police struggled to protect the Capitol on Jan. 6, the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department was stretched too thin to protect its own residents and proximate neighborhoods.