Title
Calling upon the United States Congress to admit Washington, District of Columbia as the 51st state in our Union.
Body
WHEREAS, Article IV, Section 3, Clause 1, of the U.S. Constitution authorizes the Congress to admit new states into the Union on an equal footing with existing ones; and
WHEREAS, Of the 37 state admissions to date, most have occurred when the organized government of a territory expressed the sentiment of its population in favor of statehood, usually by referendum, after which Congress empowered that government to organize a constitutional convention to write a state constitution, the acceptance of which both by the people of the territory and then by Congress, with the latter adopting by simple majority vote a joint resolution granting statehood, which the President of the United States signs and issues a proclamation announcing that a new state had been added to the Union; and
WHEREAS, The City of Washington, District of Columbia ("D.C.") is the only political and geographic entity within the United States of America whose citizens bear all of the responsibilities of citizenship, including taxation and Selective Service registration, without sharing in the full rights and privileges of citizenship through voting representation in Congress; and
WHEREAS, At more than 700,000 residents, the population of the D.C. is already larger than two states - Vermont and Wyoming - and comparable to that of several others including Alaska and Delaware, without accounting for its rate of population growth; and
WHEREAS, More than 11,000 D.C. residents currently serve in the United States Armed Forces, and since World War I more than 200,000 D.C. residents have so served our nation, yet these citizens have no voting voice on the Congressional decisions regarding war and peace; and
WHEREAS, The residents of D.C. collectively pay more in federal income taxes than those of 22 states, but have no voting voice in congressional deliberations on how their t...
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