The U.S. House of Representatives will vote on D.C. statehood next week, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) announced Tuesday.
The bill — H.R. 51, or The Washington D.C. Admissions Act — will go before the House for a floor vote on Friday, June 26. It will be the first statehood bill to reach the House floor since 1993, when D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) proposed similar legislation.
While that bill failed, this legislation will likely pass the House because it has 224 co-sponsors, more than the 218-vote threshold.
However, the bill is unlikely to advance in the GOP-controlled Senate.
Norton, the District’s nonvoting congressional representative and H.R. 51’s chief sponsor, nevertheless expressed satisfaction at the date of her bill being set.
“It is surely worth noting as our country prepares to celebrate its birth as a nation on July 4th that the House of Representatives will acknowledge on June 26th the equal citizenship of the residents of the nation’s capital by voting for statehood for the District of Columbia,” Norton said.
