Joe Biden's administration officially supported the creation of the 51st state of the United States – the Federal District of Columbia is to be transformed into a new territorial administrative unit.
The White House has called on Congress to vote in favor of the bill, Fox News reported.
For too long, more than 700,000 Washington, DC residents have been denied full representation in the US Congress. – said the White House. – Taxation without representation and denial of self-government are an insult to the democratic values on which our country was founded.
The incumbent Democrats have formulated their proposal as a solution to the pressing issue of civil rights for the residents of the district, but the Republicans insist that the attempt to create a new state is completely unconstitutional and has only one goal – to remove control in the Senate by adding two Liberal Senators.
According to representatives of the Republican Party, the issue of creating a new state can be solved through a constitutional amendment, but not through a law passed by Congress.
A vote in the US House of Representatives on the bill is due this week.
If the law is passed, the new state will be named “Washington, Commonwealth of Douglas” in honor of the American educator, orator and leader of the abolitionist movement Frederico Douglas.
Born into a slave in the United States, Douglas made three attempts to escape from his master, the last of which was successful in 1838. He soon became one of the most famous activists for the rights of African Americans and wrote an autobiographical book, The Story of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave.
