League calls for Congressional Leadership to expand D.C. Rights and Statehood

Earlier this week, LWVUS signed onto a letter addressing Congressional leadership on the deployment of federal troops to the District of Columbia against protestors. The letter was signed on by hundreds of other organizations in partnership with D.C. Vote, an organization that fights for statehood and representation for the residents of Washington D.C. The letter asks Congress to take immediate steps to give local D.C. officials authority over their national guard, and asks for Congress to pass H.R. 51 and grant statehood to D.C. 

June 15, 2020
The Honorable Mitch McConnell                             The Honorable Nancy Pelosi 
317 Russell Senate Office Building                          235 Cannon House Office Building 
United States Senate                                                        United States House of Representatives 
Washington, DC 20510                                                  Washington, DC 20515

The Honorable Charles E. Schumer                         The Honorable Kevin McCarthy 
322 Hart Senate Office Building                               2421 Rayburn House Office Building 
United States Senate                                                        United States House of Representatives 
Washington, DC 20510                                                   Washington, DC 20515

Dear Majority Leader McConnell, Speaker Pelosi, Minority Leaders Schumer and McCarthy:

On June 1st people from across the District of Columbia and surrounding areas came together, peacefully, in Lafayette Square to protest the brutal murder of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police. They gathered to protest the systemic racism prevalent across the United States that led to that moment. For the afternoon hours people from all walks of life chanted, played music and expressed their views as protected by the First Amendment.

At 6:35pm, that all changed. Federally controlled military and law-enforcement units advanced on those assembled, firing powerful rubber pellets and other munitions into the crowd, without warning and without provocation, pushing the law abiding gathering out of Lafayette Square by force. Military helicopters under federal control were used throughout the evening hovering over DC streets in an attempt to send both debris, and therefore protesters, scattering.

The federal forces took these military actions against the people of DC, without so much as notifying the locally elected mayor, nor the DC Chief of Police. If DC were a state, military actions against the population could not happen without the Governor’s involvement.

The same systemic racism that the country is protesting is at the root of the District’s lack of full self-government, lack of representation. A majority of color jurisdiction continues to be overseen by a majority white unelected body, denying statehood for reasons of partisanship (as recently acknowledged by the President). This is simply wrong.

The 700,000 parents, siblings, family members, and individuals who call Washington, DC home should not fear ongoing occupation by federal forces. It is wrong on its face, and it is even more egregious given the exclusion of these Americans from representation.

We, the undersigned organizations, representing millions of Americans, call on Congress to immediately take three steps. First, give local DC officials control over the DC National Guard, in line with each state. Second, revoke the President’s authority to federalize the local DC Metropolitan Police Department. Finally, pass H.R. 51, the DC Admissions Act, to make DC a state and to end more than two hundred years of oppression. Statehood is the permanent solution to make the residents of Washington, DC full citizens of the United States and its time has come.

Sincerely,
For full list of signatories see attached