Republican senator suggests DC’s 700,000 residents should move if they want political representation

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Republican senator James Lankford on Tuesday voiced his opposition to making Washington, DC, the 51st state in the US and suggested that its 700,000 residents should move if they want political representation.

"Any individual that moves to Washington, DC, understands that Washington, DC, is unique… this is a place where you don’t have a vote for a senator or a House member,” said Mr Lankford during the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing.

The hearing was about the bill that proposes to create Washington, DC, the 51st state with one representative and two senators. However, the small portion of land which includes the White House, the US Capitol, and the National Mall would remain a federal district.

At present, the residents of DC pay federal taxes, vote for president and serve in the armed forces, but have no voting representation in the US Congress.

But the senator, who represents Oklahoma, acknowledged that DC for decades has had a non-voting delegate in the House.

Mr Lankford argued that people have options “to be able to still work and to be able to travel and to be able to move into other areas if they wanted to be able to work in Washington, DC.”

“Many people live in Maryland or in Virginia or in West Virginia, and drive in to be able to be here from longer distances. But that’s a volitional choice; no one’s compelled to actually be here, knowing that that’s been the situation for more than 200 years,” he said.

Though the bill is getting both popular and political support, its chances of passing through the Senate are looking slim. It has already received an endorsement from the White House and Democrats have called it a long-standing injustice finally being made right.

Muriel Bowser, the Democratic mayor of Washington, DC, who has been actively campaigning for statehood, tweeted: “Denying American citizens a vote in the Congress that taxes them goes against the founding principles of this great nation.”

But Republicans are not in favour of the bills with several leaders pointing out that the move is a bid by the Democrats to gain more seats in the US House and Senate.