EXCERPT:
BOWSER: “The Constitution left the issue of democracy for residents of the District of Columbia to the Congress. The House of Representatives has passed the Washington, D.C. Admission Act twice and the White House has indicated its support for the bill through a statement of administration policy. Our democracy is truly in the hands of this Senate. It is a time for the U.S. Senate to support the D.C. petition for statehood. My testimony today echoes the many arguments I made before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform in March and in September of 2019, and some of the same arguments made by my predecessor in this very room in 2014. Then, as now, the District’s call for full democracy has been drowned out by arguments that ignore the fact that the second-class status of D.C. residents is clearly an anomaly of the United States Constitution, not a feature of it."