The House is poised to pass legislation Friday that would make Washington, D.C., the 51st state, the first time such a bill has ever been approved.
The vote will be historic, as legislation to make the District a state has not even been brought to the floor since 1993, when it was soundly defeated.
Yet even if the legislation is approved on Friday, the passage will underscore the challenges the movement for D.C. statehood still faces.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has ruled out bringing the bill to the floor, and President Trump opposes it. If D.C. were a state, it would almost certainly add two Democratic senators and one Democratic lawmaker to the House given the city’s Democratic-leaning citizens.
Nonetheless, Friday’s vote will be a big milestone in a decades-long battle.
‘10 miles square’
Residents of the District, then majority Black, couldn’t even vote in presidential elections until 1961 with the ratifying of the 23rd Amendment.
In 1973, Congress passed the Home Rule Act, which gave D.C. a district council and a mayor.
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