Bill Text: NJ AJR146 | 2024-2025 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Urges Congress enact legislation granting statehood to Washington, D.C.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 5-0)
Status: (Introduced) 2024-02-22 - Introduced, Referred to Assembly Oversight, Reform and Federal Relations Committee [AJR146 Detail]
Download: New_Jersey-2024-AJR146-Introduced.html
No. 146
STATE OF NEW JERSEY
221st LEGISLATURE
INTRODUCED FEBRUARY 22, 2024
Sponsored by:
Assemblywoman CAROL A. MURPHY
District 7 (Burlington)
SYNOPSIS
Urges Congress enact legislation granting statehood to Washington, D.C.
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
As introduced.
A Joint Resolution urging the United States Congress to enact legislation granting statehood to Washington, D.C.
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 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 passage of the Twenty-Third Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1961; and
Whereas, As of 2023, the U.S. Census Bureau data estimates the District of Columbia's population at approximately 678,972 residents, comparable to the populations of Wyoming (584,057), Vermont (647,464), Alaska (733,406), and North Dakota (783,926); and
Whereas, Residents of the District of Columbia share all the responsibilities of United States citizenship, including paying more federal taxes than residents of 22 states, serving on federal juries, and defending the United States as members of the United States Armed Forces in every war 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 and passed a referendum on November 8, 2016, which favored statehood by 86 percent; 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 50 states; and
Whereas, The United States Congress repeatedly has interfered with the District of Columbia's limited self-government by enacting laws that affect the District's expenditure of its locally raised tax revenue, including barring the use 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 their citizens; and
Whereas, Although the District of Columbia has passed consecutive balanced budgets since FY1997, it still faces the possibility of being shut down yearly because of Congressional deliberations over the federal budget; and
Whereas, District of Columbia Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton and Delaware United States Senator Tom Carper introduced in the 118th Congress H.R. 51 and S. 51, the Washington, D.C. Admission Act, to provide that the State of Washington, D.C. would have all the rights of citizenship as taxpaying American citizens, including two Senators and at least one House member; 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's residents a violation of its charter agreement, to which the United States is a signatory; now, therefore,
Be It Resolved by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. This joint resolution supports admitting Washington, D.C. into the Union as a state of the United States of America.
2. The members of the United States Congress are urged to enact federal legislation granting statehood to the people of Washington, D.C.
3. Copies of this resolution, as filed with the Secretary of State, shall be transmitted by the Clerk of the General Assembly or the Secretary of the Senate to the Mayor of D.C., and each member of Congress elected from this State.
4. This joint resolution shall take effect immediately.
STATEMENT
This joint resolution urges Congress to enact legislation granting statehood to Washington, D.C.
Residents of the District of Columbia share all the responsibilities of United States citizenship, including paying more federal taxes than residents of 22 states, serving on federal juries, and defending the United States as members of the United States Armed Forces, yet they are denied full representation in Congress.
The residents of the District of Columbia themselves have endorsed statehood. In 2016, a referendum was passed favoring statehood by 86 percent.
