For the first time EVER, the House has voted to make Washington, D.C. the 51st state in the nation.

This is huge. Roughly 700,000 people live in Washington, D.C., the majority of whom are Black and Brown Americans. They:

*pay more in federal taxes than the residents of 22 existing states,
*defend our country through military service, and
*have repeatedly been denied voting representation in Congress.

In short: Nearly 3/4 of a million Americans have had their voice and their votes stolen from them. It's time to give it back.

And yet Mitch McConnell has pledged to deny even a vote on the D.C. Statehood bill.

Join me in demanding that the U.S. Senate pass the D.C. Statehood bill.

SIGN THE PETITION NOW
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Time and time again, the autonomy of D.C. residents has been overridden by Congress and the White House.

It's how D.C. became the scene of a dystopian nightmare after George Floyd's killing, as Trump brought in out-of-state national guards and unidentified federal law enforcement to intimidate and crack down on peaceful protesters.

If we as a nation are serious about ending systemic racism in law enforcement and government, then we need to be serious about ending the disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of Black and Brown Americans in our nation's capital. We need to pass D.C. Statehood and we need to pass it now.

These 700,000 Americans deserve full representation -- a U.S. Representative and two U.S. Senators with the right to pass legislation, vote on budgets, and confirm the judges that matter so much to all of our lives.

Too many structures have been put in place by the powerful to protect the status quo and limit the power of the people. Keeping the residents of an historically black city from having full representation in Congress is just one of many such structures.


SIGN MY PETITION IF YOU AGREE:
It's long past time to pass D.C. Statehood >>
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Onward!

Jeff

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Paid for by Jeff Merkley for Oregon.