On Thursday, prior to the vote in which the Democrats in the House of Representatives voted to make Washington, D.C., the 51st state, freshman Democrat New York Congressman Mondaire Jones attacked the Republican representatives who opposed the bill, calling their arguments “racist trash.”
“I have had enough of my colleagues’ racist insinuations that somehow that the people of Washington D.C. are incapable or even unworthy of our democracy. One Senate Republican said that D.C. wouldn’t be a ‘well rounded working class state,’” Jones snapped. “I had no idea there were so many syllables in the word ‘white.’ One of my House Republican colleagues said that D.C. shouldn’t be a state because the district doesn’t have a landfill. My goodness, with all the racist trash my colleagues have brought to this debate I can see why they’re worried about having a place to put it.”
“The truth is there is no good faith argument for disenfranchising over 700,000 people, most of whom are people of color,” Jones continued.
Then Jones pronounced that opposition to making Washington, D.C., a state was based on white supremacy, and white supremacist politics could be found across America: “These desperate objections are about fear. Fear that in D.C. their white supremacist politics will no longer play. Fear enough that soon enough white supremacist politics won’t work anywhere in America.”
Despite the fact that he himself had co-sponsored legislation to pack the Supreme Court, Jones said, “Fear that if they don’t rig our democracy, they will not win. Today, Democrats are standing up for a multi-racial democracy, to democratize all 51 states in this country.”
The House of Representatives voted in a straight-party line vote, 212-208, to make Washington, D.C., the country’s 51st state.
GOP Maryland Rep. Andy Harris stated, “’This is Maryland’s land we’re talking about. How dare the Congress take Maryland’s land from it.” South Carolina GOP Rep. Nancy Mace echoed, “This is not about a balance of power; this is about more power. This is about government-run health care, a 93 trillion [dollar] Green New Deal, packing the Supreme Court, higher taxes and a bigger, less efficient form of government.”
D.C. residents are given three Electoral College votes in any presidential race. The Democrats have been trying to make Washington D.C. a state since 1980.
Louisiana GOP Rep. Steve Scalise argued:
Even with this federal largesse, the D.C. government has failed to provide for the safety and well-being of its citizens. Last year, the District of Columbia experienced a 16-year-high in murders. According to data from the Metropolitan Police Department, there are currently 57 reported murders this year. That is a 30 percent increase compared to all homicides committed in 2020. In addition to the spike in murders, there is an alarming surge in carjackings throughout the District of Columbia, with the majority of arrests so far involving children.Why should the District of Columbia be granted statehood when it can’t even perform basic governmental duties like protecting its residents against criminals?
Kentucky GOP Rep. James Comer, called the Democrats’ push for D.C. statehood a “key part of the radical leftist agenda to reshape America, along with the Green New Deal, defunding the police and packing the U.S. Supreme Court.”