HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES	H.C.R. NO.	113
THIRTY-FIRST LEGISLATURE, 2021
STATE OF HAWAII

HOUSE CONCURRENT

RESOLUTION

 

 

Urging the United States Congress to enact federal legislation granting statehood to the people of the District of Columbia.

 

 

 

        WHEREAS, the people living on the land that would eventually be designated as the District of Columbia were provided the right to vote for representation in the United States Congress when the United States Constitution was ratified in 1788; and

 

        WHEREAS, the passage of the Organic Act of 1801 placed the District of Columbia under the exclusive authority of the United States Congress and abolished residents' right to vote for members of Congress and the President and Vice President of the United States; and

 

        WHEREAS, residents of the District of Columbia were granted the right to vote for the President and Vice President through the passage of the Twenty-Third Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1961; and

 

        WHEREAS, as of 2020, the United States Census Bureau data estimates the District of Columbia's population at approximately 712,000 residents, which is comparable to the populations of Wyoming (582,000 residents), Vermont (623,000 residents), Alaska (731,000 residents), and North Dakota (765,000 residents); and

 

        WHEREAS, residents of the District of Columbia share all the responsibility of United States citizenship, including paying more federal taxes than residents of twenty-two states, serving on federal juries, and defending the United States as members of the United States armed forces in every way since the War for Independence; yet, they are denied full representation in Congress; and

        WHEREAS, the residents of the District of Columbia themselves have endorsed statehood for the District of Columbia and passed a district-wide referendum on November 8, 2016, which favored statehood with eighty-six percent of the votes; and

 

        WHEREAS, no other democratic nation denies the right of self-government, including participation in its national legislature, to the residents of its capital; and

 

        WHEREAS, the residents of the District of Columbia lack full democracy, equality, and citizenship enjoyed by the residents of the fifty states; and

 

        WHEREAS, the United States Congress has interfered repeatedly with the District of Columbia's limited self-government by enacting laws that affect the District of Columbia's expenditure of its locally-raised tax revenue; this includes barring the usage of locally-raised revenue, thus violating the fundamental principle that states and local governments are best suited to enact legislation that represents the will of its citizens; and

 

        WHEREAS, although the District of Columbia has passed consecutive balanced budgets since Fiscal Year 1997, it still faces the possibility of being shut down yearly because of congressional deliberations over the federal budget; and

 

        WHEREAS, in the 117th Congress, the District of Columbia Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton and Delaware U.S. Senator Tom Carper introduced H.R. 51 and S. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, that provides that the State of Washington, D.C. would have all the rights of citizenship as taxpaying American citizens, including representation in the United States Congress consisting of two United States Senators and at least one United States Representative; and

 

        WHEREAS, the United Nations Human Rights Committee has called on the United States Congress to address the District of Columbia's lack of political equality, and the Organization of American States has declared the disenfranchisement of the District of Columbia residents a violation of its charter agreement, to which the United States is a signatory; now, therefore,

 

        BE IT RESOLVED by the House of Representatives of the Thirty-first Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2021, the Senate concurring, that the United States Congress is urged to enact federal legislation granting statehood to the people of the District of Columbia; and

 

        BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this body supports the admission of the District of Columbia into the Union as a state of the United States of America; and

 

        BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the Vice President of the United States in the Vice President's capacity as presiding officer of the United States Senate, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, President Pro Tempore of the United States Senate, and members of Hawaii's congressional delegation with the respectful request that the full and complete text of this Concurrent Resolution be printed in the Congressional Record.

 

 

 

	OFFERED BY:	_____________________________

Report Title:  

United States Congress; District of Columbia; Statehood