In the four decades since Home Rule, elected officials in the District of Columbia have created four different commissions aimed at making the city the 51st state. Looking at the current condition of those panels, it might be obvious why the flag only has 50 stars.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today released her written testimony for tomorrow’s Senate District of Columbia statehood hearing at 3:00 p.m. in room 342 in the Dirksen Senate Office Building. In her testimony, Norton thanked Senator Tom Carper (D-DE), the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, for holding a hearing that she said is the “most important vehicle afforded by Congress…that the matter constitutes a serious national concern that should move to passage.” She said that D.C. local officials and residents accept their “reciprocal responsibility for all of us who live in the District to continue to build support for the bill.”

The fight for equality for the residents of Washington DC started in the very early 1800's when the Organic Act of 1801 established the U.S. Capital to include the cities of Alexandria, Georgetown, and Washington. Having only just recently fought the Revolutionary War to attain their freedoms from the Crown along with the rest of the citizens of the United States, the residents of these cities found themselves stripped of their own home rule and full representation in Congress! It didn't have to be that way.

Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) said today that Senator Thomas Carper’s (D-DE) announcement of the first District of Columbia statehood hearing in more than two decades highlights “a season of unusual progress for D.C. statehood.” Senator Carper, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, is one of the cosponsors of the Senate companion bill to Norton’s D.C. statehood bill, the New Columbia Admission Act.