WASHINGTON -- The District of Columbia's official push to attain full and equal voting rights in Congress has now arrived in New Hampshire. Granite State lawmakers are considering a resolution calling for the nation's capital to become the 51st state, New Columbia.
Mayor Vincent Gray and members of the D.C. Council are set to testify Friday morning at the New Hampshire statehouse in Concord after a previously planned trip was scuttled due to the threat of snow.
The resolution under consideration is HR 26, which expresses "support for admitting the District of Columbia as the fifty-first State of the United States of America."
Blogging recently at The Huffington Post, D.C. Councilmember Michael A. Brown (I-At-Large) wrote:
We believe this effort of reaching out to the states will not only bring needed nationwide publicity to our plight but will complement the progress made by Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, who is forging a legislative path in the halls of Congress and the ACLU, who are spearheading the legal and constitutional arguments.
Members of the D.C. Republican Party have called the New Hampshire trip a waste of time and said that D.C. officials would be better off lobbying lawmakers closer to home in Maryland and Virginia.
In 1978, Congress approved a constitutional amendment giving residents in the nation's capital full voting representation in the House and Senate. That effort fell short when only 16 states ratified the amendment.
UPDATE, Friday, 12:32 p.m.: The D.C. delegation has testified and has left Concord.