Reacting to the latest proposal to grant statehood to the District of Columbia, the sole member of the U.S. House of Representatives from South Dakota recently introduced legislation to merge most of D.C. with Maryland instead. Rep. Dusty Johnson, a Republican, suggested his District of Columbia-Maryland Reunion Act was something of a nonpartisan idea, too. After all, if the beef of D.C. residents is that they don’t have representation in Congress, why not share it with the residents of Maryland, a state that ceded ground to create the federal district in the first place? The congressman observed that Maryland remained a natural fit, since the two communities continue to be so similar, and regarded his fix was “not necessarily the all-Republican way.”

Christian Cooper is a New York City-based writer, activist and birder.

Imagine if a country today took a plurality-Black population, stripped those citizens of any meaningful political power, and relegated them to the whims of a few privileged Whites who ruled in comfort and majesty.

Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware and a bunch of other Democrats introduced a bill to make Washington, D.C., the 51st state.

Republicans will tell you such a proposal is dead on arrival.

The U.S. Senate has followed the House in introducing legislation to make Washington, D.C. the 51st state. It would be called Washington, Douglass Commonwealth to honor the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who lived in the city. The bill is a long-overdue expansion of the democratic process for D.C. residents, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

In a growing show of support for D.C. Statehood, Senator Tom Carper (DE) along with 38 other Senators, re-introduced the Washington, DC Admission Act (S. 51), legislation that would give the 712,000 civilians in Washington, DC full voting rights and representation in Congress. The DC Statehood movement received increased attention and support this past year, when over the summer, former-President Trump ordered heavily armed troops and law enforcement into the nation’s capital to violently disperse peaceful protests so he could pose for a photo-op. Then, on January 6th, Trump initially denied Mayor Bowser’s request to deploy the National Guard during the assault on the Capitol, resulting in one of the darkest days of American democracy.

Days after runoff elections in Georgia delivered Democrats an unexpected Senate majority, the team behind 51 for 51, an advocacy group fighting for D.C. statehood, gathered on Zoom to discuss its next steps. “There is nothing in the way of us finally granting statehood to over 700,000 residents of Washington, D.C.,” said Stasha Rhodes, the campaign director, her frameless glasses glinting in the glare of her computer screen. “We now see the light at the end of a very dark, undemocratic tunnel.”

When I read the Jan. 6 editorial “Don’t usurp the people’s vote,” it was hard to imagine the awful scenes we would see later that day as rioters attacked the U.S. Capitol. We’ve all seen the footage of them breaking through windows and assaulting police officers. But I wonder how many people realize that the police officers who live in D.C. and risked their lives to protect congress from a violent mob have no voting representation in Congress.

Well, this column will sure date me. When I was in elementary school in 1959, we learned two new songs. The opening words of the first were “Your statehood we celebrate, Alaska our 49th state.” The second song substituted “Hawaii" and "50th.” The legislation approving their statehood gave more than a million Americans their full rights of citizenship. It was also a boon for the flag manufacturers, as new flags with 50 stars were suddenly in demand.

NAACP President and CEO, Derrick Johnson, released the following statement in support of D.C. Statehood:

“For over two centuries, Washington D.C.’s lack of statehood has been rooted in white supremacy. When Black men gained the right to vote in 1867, Congress replaced the local, elected government with three white men commissioners. Since then, opposition to statehood has been driven by false dog-whistle arguments on the city’s ability to manage its own affairs.”

Mainers can help bring democracy to our nation’s capital at long last. We must encourage Sens. King and Collins to sign on as co-sponsors of the D.C. statehood bill.

In June, House Democrats passed a bill to grant statehood to Washington, D.C., which would end one of the most appalling cases of systematic disenfranchisement in the country.

As President Joe Biden left the Capitol to travel to Arlington National Cemetery this afternoon, some people noticed the new license plates on the presidential limo. The big number, 46, of course refers to Biden’s new status as the 46th president, but below it reads the common DC slogan: “Taxation Without Representation.”

The most striking thing about the scenes of Washington, D.C., that filled TV screens as Americans watched the Jan. 20 inauguration of President Joe Biden: the near-total absence of Washingtonians.

On January 6, as I watched insurrectionists and white supremacists storm the U.S. Capitol—mere blocks from my apartment—I was most struck by the casual ease with which they were able to take over what I’d always believed to be one of the most secure buildings in the country, if not the world.

Jan. 6 began with Black joy and ended with white hate — a day like too many in our history. I live blocks away from the U.S. Capitol, and I started my morning on Jan. 6 hopeful that the election of two Democratic senators from Georgia would finally provide a real path for my own congressional representation as a resident of D.C. But, as the day went on, I watched in horror as insurrectionists invaded my neighborhood, and a treasonous mob stormed into the “people’s house,” all initiated by the now-twice-impeached President Trump.

Advocates for District of Columbia statehood like Joshua Burch have worked through a lot this month, from the emotional whiplash of Jan. 6 to the surreal experience of seeing much of political Washington fenced off from the rest of the city ahead of the inauguration and kept under heavy military guard.

More than anything, though, they feel a sense of urgency.

Three consecutive surveys, all conducted by different pollsters and with different sponsors, have found more Americans favor than oppose statehood for Washington, D.C. There is evidence that support for D.C. statehood has increased over time, with one pollster finding a 9-point increase from January 2019 to September 2020.

Many journalists and political commentators have been pessimistic about the possibility of statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. This seems to be primarily because, despite the recent Democratic victories in Georgia, moderate senators like Joe Manchin (D-W.V.), Diane Feinstein (D-Calif), and Angus King (I-Maine) continue to support the legislative filibuster. It is impossible to imagine Republican senators voting to give Democratic-leaning areas full representation, so the issue must be dead on arrival in the upper chamber. But in a recent CNN interview, Manchin himself provided evidence for why this thinking is all wrong.

Maine voting rights and other advocacy groups are calling for Sen. Angus King to co-sponsor Washington, D.C., statehood legislation, arguing in a letter sent to his office last week that it is amoral for the 705,000 residents of the District to pay federal taxes but receive no representation in Congress.

The letter, sent Jan. 5, was signed by the ACLU of Maine, League of Women Voters of Maine, the Maine AFL-CIO, Maine Citizens for Clean Elections, Maine Conservation Voters, Planned Parenthood Maine Action Fund, Professional Firefighters of Maine and Maine People’s Alliance (of which Beacon is a project).

The denial of voting rights to residents of the District of Columbia is a disgrace in itself — but last week, it also endangered national security.