Norton Says Washington Post Poll Shows D.C. Residents United in Uphill Fight for Statehood
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) responded today to a new Washington Post poll showing 71% of registered voters in the District of Columbia support statehood. Norton announced that she will hold a congressional briefing on D.C. statehood, which had to be postponed last week, at the beginning of next year to keep momentum for statehood going into 2016. Norton's statehood briefing will feature a screening of the hilarious segment on D.C. statehood that aired on HBO's Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, followed by a question and answer segment with constitutional expert Viet Dinh, the former U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy under President George W. Bush, who will lay out the constitutional basis for D.C. statehood.
"It is gratifying, but perhaps not unexpected, to see residents overwhelmingly in support of making the District of Columbia the 51st state," Norton said. "The Washington Post poll shows new and long-time residents alike share a common understanding of what we are entitled to. Apparently, it does not take residents long after moving to the nation's capital to learn they have lost some of their most important rights. Residents also understand that statehood is not a mere trophy issue. According to the poll, residents connected the absence of statehood to the rights that statehood brings. They clearly recognize the continued denial of their rights as bizarrely at odds with the rights other Americans enjoy.
"This poll should be good news for the statehood movement and others who are directly involved in trying to get statehood for the District. There is clearly a ripe field of residents who are disturbed enough to participate in the statehood movement. Moreover, most residents appear to understand that statehood is an uphill climb that we will need to keep fighting to achieve, rather than a priority they should expect this Congress to deliver next year."
The historic support for statehood in D.C. matches the historic support Norton has gotten for statehood in Congress. In January, Norton introduced her D.C. statehood bill with a historic number of original cosponsors (93), and the bill now has a total of 128 cosponsors. Senator Tom Carper introduced the companion bill in the Senate with a record 17 original cosponsors, including the top four Senate Democratic leaders.