West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin said Friday that he opposes a bill to create Washington, D.C., the 51st state – effectively hitting a push by fellow Democrats that would all but guarantee two more seats in the Senate.
Manchin said he believes a constitutional amendment is needed, rather than a bill passed by a House that would shrink the federal district and accept the remainder of DC as the new state.
There will not be a constitutional amendment. This would require two-thirds support in each chamber of Congress and ratification in three-fourth states.
Manchin told Metronuse’s local radio host Hoppy Carchewal that Democrats believed the constitution was in need of amendment, adding that both Attorney General Bobby Kennedy and the Carter administration held the view.
“They all came to the same conclusion: If Congress wanted DC to be a state, it should propose a constitutional amendment. It should propose a constitutional amendment and let the people of America vote. Manchin said.
The state of DC will result in two new senators and a new voting member of the House. All likely would be Democrats, considering President Biden took more than 92 percent of the city’s vote last year.
House Democrats passed a D.C. state bill last year for the first time along party lines – and did so again this month. The last time the DC State House received a House vote was in 1993, it failed with just one Republican vote and nearly half Opposed the Democrats.
In the intervening years, local Democrats pushed into the party’s conservatism and only proposed a proposal to shrink the federal district described in the constitution to the White House, the US Capitol, and federal buildings in the National Mall.
Although the idea has won near universal support among Democrats, it has not landed centrist Republicans in the Senate, where Democrats have won a 50-50 majority, severing ties in their favor with Vice President Kamala Harris. Typical swing-voting sensor. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) indicated that they do not support the bill.
Manchin’s opposition to the bill greatly reduces the likelihood that Democrats will end the 60-vote procedural filmbusters that require a supremacy to pass most bills in the Senate.
Conservative opponents of DC statehood have long advocated that DC be given back to Maryland if residents want voting representation in Congress and have given an argument over the ideas of the founding fathers.
But former President Donald Trump, in his first commentary on the state of DC as president – created new ground last year by telling The Post – that Republicans should oppose the idea because it would benefit Democrats.
“DC will never be a state,” Trump told the Post. “You mean Colombia, one state? Why? Then we can have two more Democratic – Democrat senators and five more Congressmen? No thanks. That will never happen.”
Trump said: “They want to do it so they raise two automatic Democrats – you know it’s 100 percent Democrat, basically – so why would Republicans ever do that? It’ll never happen until we have some very , There aren’t very stupid Republicans that I don’t think you do. You understand, are you? ”
Republican politicians have accepted that earlier truth.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) said in his Republican National Convention speech last year that DC statehood must be opposed to prevent Democratic legislation from being passed.
“They want to tell you what kind of car you can drive.” Which sources of information are reliable. And even how many hamburgers you can eat, ”he said. “And they want to coddle it all by making themselves the swamps of the 51st state of Washington, DC, America. With two more liberal senators, we can’t minimize the damage they do.
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