[Congressional Record Volume 159, Number 9 (Thursday, January 24, 2013)]
[Senate]
[Page S287]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. CARPER (for himself, Mr. Durbin, Mrs. Murray, and Mrs. 
        Boxer):
  S. 132. A bill to provide for the admission of the State of New 
Columbia into the Union; to the Committee on Homeland Security and 
Governmental Affairs.
  Mr. CARPER. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the New Columbia 
Admissions Act, a bill that seeks to end a longstanding injustice and 
give full voting representation to the residents of the District of 
Columbia. More than 600,000 Americans live in Washington, D.C. and bear 
all the responsibilities of citizenship, yet currently have no vote in 
either chamber of Congress. This legislation paves the way for the 
creation of a 51st state from the populated portions of Washington, 
D.C., giving the citizens who live here in our nation's capital the 
voice they deserve in our national government.
  Washington is not just a collection of government offices, monuments 
and museums; it is home to more than half a million people who work, 
study, raise families, and start businesses. These citizens serve in 
the military and die for our country just like the residents of the 50 
States. They pay Federal taxes just like other Americans in fact they 
pay more per capita than residents of most states. But when it comes to 
having a voice in our Congress, suddenly these citizens do not count.
  We must ask ourselves how we would feel in their place; I think most 
of us would quickly decide that this is not how we would want to be 
treated. In fact, the United States is the only democracy in the world 
that treats the citizens of its capital city this way. We are the only 
democracy, it is sad to say, that denies voting representation to the 
people who live in its capital city.
  People have been trying to fix this injustice for almost as long as 
it has existed. In 1801, just one year after residents of the new 
Federal capital city were denied the vote, a prominent city resident 
began arguing for a constitutional amendment to give voting rights to 
residents of the District. Two years later, a House member introduced a 
bill to ``retrocede,'' or give back to Maryland and Virginia, the land 
that was ceded to create the District. Support for the proposal was 
based in large part on the political injustice of denying 
representation to the residents of the capital city. Even some 
opponents reportedly argued that the District might be granted 
Congressional representation once its population became more 
substantial, a threshold that clearly seems to have been met by a city 
of more than half a million people, a number comparable to several 
states. In 1978, the House and Senate approved a constitutional 
amendment to give the District full voting representation in Congress 
that was ratified by 16 states, but the measure died when it failed to 
win support from the required \3/4\ of the States within 7 years. More 
recently, in 2009, the Senate approved a bill to give the District a 
voting representative in the House.
  The bill I am introducing today creates a path for the District of 
Columbia to become the State of ``New Columbia'' with full voting 
rights in Congress. Under this bill, a federal district called 
Washington, D.C. would still remain under the control of Congress, as 
the Constitution mandates. But it would be a smaller area encompassing 
the White House, the Capitol, the Supreme Court and the National Mall, 
an area where few people actually live. The rest of the current 
District of Columbia, diverse neighborhoods that are home to more than 
half a million U.S. citizens no different from the ones you and I and 
our colleagues come here to represent would become a new State provided 
that its residents vote to set that in motion.
  The bill is similar to proposals offered by Senator Edward Kennedy in 
the early 1990s, and by my former colleague Senator Joseph Lieberman in 
December 2012. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District's sole, 
non-voting representative in the House who has worked tirelessly for 
voting rights for the residents of the city, has introduced a companion 
House bill.
  I believe we keep proposing and debating different solutions to the 
injustice imposed on District residents because we know in our hearts 
that the situation we have now and have tolerated for so long is not 
right. It is familiar, but it is not fair and not consistent with the 
values we all share as Americans. It is incumbent upon those of us who 
enjoy the right and the privilege of full voting rights to take up the 
cause of our fellow citizens here in the District of Columbia and find 
a solution.
  Earlier this week, we celebrated the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr. 
and his legacy of working to bring equality and justice to all 
Americans. It is in that spirit that I introduce this bill, with my 
colleagues Senators Barbara Boxer, Richard Durbin and Patty Murray. I 
hope we can work together to find a way to bring the same rights to the 
residents of the District of Columbia that all of us living in the 50 
states cherish so much.
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