House Democrats have approved a bill to admit Washington, D.C., as a state on Friday, June 26, 2020.
The bill, introduced by DC’s nonvoting House member, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, would shrink the federal capital to a small area encompassing the White House, Capitol building, Supreme Court, and other federal buildings along the National Mall. The rest of the city would become the 51st state, named the Washington, Douglass Commonwealth after abolitionist Frederick Douglass.
In the podcast below, you’re able to listen to NPR’s Ari Shapiro talk with Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton ’60 of Washington, DC, on All Things Considered, prior to the vote, on June 24, 2020, about the first vote on statehood for the District of Columbia in almost 30 years.